TOPIC:

Hello

Would anyone be able to advise how I can ascertain whether my Grandfather is shown on the listings. There are several W or W H Mays and do not know how to drill down to get more information if that is at all possible.

His name (to be honest I am not 100% sure) was William Henry May or Harry May.

I understand that he was a despatch rider who was machine gunned (forgive me if this would be incorrect I am basing this on family anecdotes),

his colleague was killed and he was wounded in the leg.

Granddad was picked up by Canadian Doctors and once it was discovered that he was only 15 he was dismissed from the army.

I know that he did have a leg injury that needed tending for the rest of his life but that does not mean it was caused by the injury that was attributed to it.

I would dearly like to find some enlistment papers that would give me a clue to his life as he ran away from home in Liverpool when his parents died within a short time of each other when he was 13.

Many thanks for taking time to read this

Anne

Anne,

This is a difficult one as we have little information to go on. Do you have any more information about him?

There are nearly 700 W Mays in the rolls for the Boer War. Not many of these would have been wounded so it would be possible to cut this list down a lot. You could then search for service papers for that subset of people and perhaps identify him from there (if the papers exist). That would be quite an undertaking.

Kind regards
David