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Hi David,
Where did you find out all this information from. I have been struggling to find out anything about his life in the forces.
My grandfather John Turnbull was a sergeant in the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders and was in France during WW1. Luckily he survived. I got a lot of very good information about his war record from the Argyle and Sutherland Museum. His father William was John Turnbull's brother. I find this all very interesting.

Good Morning Tom,

I found all the stuff about your 2XGreat Uncle through my membership of Ancestry & Find My Past. My extended membership of FMP allows me to search newspapers hence the article I posted. You could also go more directly to the sources namely The National Archives and The National Army Museum. Both the latter are in London and if you made an appointment and gave them the necessary information in advance you could visit them and see the documents in the flesh.

If you go the Ancestry/FMP way you need to make military searches entering name and regimental number – where to enter the regimental number on FMP is obvious, for Ancestry enter it as a Keyword. One bit of advice, which I have just reminded myself of, is to forget about initials as they are often incorrect on documents. Thus I have now found him on QSA & KSA medal rolls where his initial has been given as “W”. I have also found I overlooked a second and fuller version of his Deceased Soldier’s Effects record which claims he was born in Dunfermline (!), and was a “Labourer” when he originally enlisted on 17 February 1893:



I don’t know if you have managed to read the information given on this site about the 1st Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers, if not you should – this is the penultimate paragraph:

“This was a sad close to two and a half years' splendid work. No battalion had done more continuous hard work throughout the campaign, and none had done their allotted task in a worthier manner.”

The “sad close” was their second meeting with Roos De La Rey and his men.

If you want to learn more than you ever wanted to know about the 3rd South Staffordshire Regiment visit:

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/17-memorials-...hire-regiment#100107

I don’t think it was normal to give soldier’s a new number on becoming attached to another unit but in this case it was bit more than an attachment. Also, I presume with a 100 of them it was felt necessary to avoid duplication of regimental numbers.

Also as you have found contacting/visiting Regimental Museums can be extremely profitable - in this case the Fusiliers of Northumberland Museum based in Alnwick Castle.

Regards, David.

Many thanks again David for all your help. I have a subscription with My Heritage which has been reasonably good although when this is up at the end of the year I will probably go with Ancestry or Find My Past. I think there is more information there unless I am doing something wrong. I have also downloaded lots of extracts of Births, Marriages, Deaths and Census records from Scotlands People. This has given me a lot of information albeit by paying for credits to see the records. I would definately recommend them for researching Scottish records.
I will read about the NF units on here though as I find it very interesting.
Once again thank you.
Tom