Discovering the stories behind the names on Britain's war memorials

2-3 minute read

By Ellie Ayton | February 8, 2024

An old photo of a soldier with poppy and medal graphics

From Staffordshire to Sussex, war memorials and commemorative plaques in every corner of the country remember those we lost in the two World Wars, names upon names etched in stone. But how many of them have descendants to remember them?

Family history doesn’t just have to be about our own families. Many of us research for friends or colleagues, allowing us to sharpen our skills and provide answers for others.

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Here, four members of the incredible Findmypast Community share what they discovered when they traced the lives of the casualties remembered on war memorials.

A hidden story that started with just a name

Community member Patricia used to be in the Women’s Royal Air Force. She decided to research a colleague’s uncle for this challenge.

Sadly, the man I researched was not well thought of in his family, as he only looked after a hotel for the RAF during World War 2. It got me thinking as to why. According to the family, he was found in Berlin in the early 1950s by a nephew doing his national service. Upon researching his name, I found his last promotion in the newspapers and discovered he worked in intelligence.

Then, I discovered the hotel was a debriefing station for the intelligence service. He was very good at languages, so everything started to make sense. As the Berlin trip took place in the Cold War, this could have been an intelligence trip. He received either an OBE or MBE for his services just before he left the RAF. This intriguing story started with my colleague's uncle's name etched on their local war memorial.

Letters & enquiries

Steve was inspired to research a few names on his local war memorial in London, as he walks past it almost every day.

I decided to look into the story of Private Harold Noakes, as his name has long intrigued me. I learned he was 16 when he enlisted in the armed forces, which is so young. His service record tells the tale of how he was injured time and again while serving the British Empire but kept returning to the field. To me, he sounds like a fighter. But he wasn’t killed in action during the First World War like I thought. Sadly, during a training exercise in 1916, he was injured and later died of his wounds in hospital.

Harold’s service record, found in our British Army Service Records.

His father, Charles, was understandably bitter about his son’s death. In the service records, I found letters and details of an enquiry. While he was learning how to use a Lewis gun, Harold was killed by a bullet to the thigh.

A widow left behind

Liz found George Francis Rosam’s surname interesting, so she used a war memorial and family history records to commemorate his service.

According to my research, George lived in London. He was married to Esther Piggott and had two children with her. It turned out that George was a career soldier who had enlisted in 1900. By 1914, he was a reservist.

An old snippet from Chelmsford Chronicle

Chelmsford Chronicle, 26 January 1917.

I discovered that he was killed in early 1917, which was reported in the newspapers of the time. It feels particularly poignant that Esther never remarried after George’s death.

A missing uncle

After our special Remembrance livestream, Heather was inspired to explore newspapers for a distant relative who had been eluding her for many years.

Fred Aston was my father’s great-uncle, and I wanted to learn more about him. After a spot of searching, not only did I find a photograph of him and his two brothers in the newspapers, but I also discovered that Fred was attached to the Intelligence Corps at the time he was killed in January 1916.

The officers had erected an impressive war memorial over his headstone. A photograph of it has been in the family ever since. We had no idea that the Intelligence Corps had commissioned it.

Where will wartime history take you?

Why not research some of the casualties on your local war memorial to ensure their story is remembered? Or, offer to trace the war heroes on a friend’s family tree? You'll find everything you need on Findmypast, with World War memorial collections like the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Debt of Honour and the Imperial War Museum's Lives of The First World War 1914-1918, alongside military resources covering the Boer War, the Korean War, the Falklands and more.