Sepia Saturday - War and Peace - Week 1 - Smiths in WWI

My great grandmother, Isabella Frances Parker Smith, saw two of her five sons go overseas from Canada to fight for King and Country during WWI. These must have felt like very long years.

This is my Great Uncle, Herbert Austin Smith. All I know about his service is that he was captured by the Germans and held prisoner for some time.

Before Uncle Herb shipped out, he visited his sister, Frances Ruth Smith, at prep-school, King's Hall Compton, in Lenoxville, Quebec. There Herb met her Principal, Miss Joll, who so approved of him that she declared a school holiday when word came that he had been freed from the POW camp.

Miss Joll

My grandfather, George Washington Smith, also served in WWI.

He enlisted on August 18, 1917 at the age of 19 and was discharged on July 11, 1919 at 21.

My mother was always under the impression that he worked in the "motor-pool" during World War I and saw no combat. He was still overseas after Armistice Day and spent his 21st birthday, February 22, 1919, delivering a truck back to its unit and waiting for a train back to his own unit. An entry in his WWII service file, however, indicates that he was a machine-gunner.

It will be a while before I can find out more. While his WWII file was available through the mail after a wait of about five months, both his and Uncle Herb's WWI files are being digitized as part of a huge undertaking by Library & Archives Canada. They are working through the "M"s now, according to their last update. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will see their files by the end of 2017.

Ancestry Fails - The early military service of George Washington Smith

As most people who are reading this blog are probably aware, Ancestry has introduced a new feature called Timeline which seems to be meeting with mixed reviews. Even those who don't use Ancestry may have seen some posts about the issues some of us are having with it.  Yesterday I was checking on the date of the wedding anniversary of my maternal grandparents for an upcoming 80th anniversary post when I discovered that Ancestry timelines has made a complete mess of the facts on my grandfather's timeline. *From a discussion on this topic that I heard last week, I thought that this feature was now out of beta and had been rolled out to everyone, I was mistaken. When I was finished writing this post, I decided to email or otherwise contact Ancestry with my experiences and then discovered that I could opt-out and go back to the old view. I did so and also let Ancestry know why.*

For anyone who is not familiar, the timeline feature adds things to the facts you have already added for your ancestors. Some of them are taken from your tree, like the birth of a sibling for instance, and some from history, like the beginning of WWI. I like the concept. It takes gives context to the lives of our ancestors. But it has to be accurate to work and if it doesn't, it is rather annoying.

Exhibit A

Please click on the image to enlarge, if I do it, it comes off of the page.

George Washington Smith was my mother's father. He was born in Thetford Mines, Quebec in 1898 to George Robert and Isabella Frances Parker Smith. For a time they had also had a residence on the island of Montreal in the City of Westmount. This is where the family lived at the time of the 1911 Canadian census. Hochelaga was the district in Westmount. None of these places are in Quebec City. This error is made for everyone in the family.

Exhibit B

As you can see from the purple circle to the upper left of this screenshot, this "event" takes place on 14 August, 1914. Ancestry has titled this "Serving in the Canadian Military During the Great War." That was actually the date that the Canadian Parliament adopted the War Measures Act which declared war on Germany, although they were effectively at war with Germany ten days earlier when it was so declared by Great Britain. My grandfather was not serving in the military on that date, nor did her serve in 1898 as it says below the caption, because Canada was not at war and he was an infant. Ahhhh!!!

Exhibit C

So, this one Ancestry got right...or did they? While this is the date of his enlistment, my grandfather's service is treated like a one-day event.  He "served in the military on August 18, 1917." No, he enlisted on that day or he served starting on that date. Think I'm nitpicking? Take a look at Exhibit D.

Exhibit D

"As the Great War raged on, George Washington Smith was probably living in Canada,..." Well, no. See what happens when you treat service as a one day event?

I'm really not happy about this at all. Have you seen errors like this in your Ancestry tree?  It is definitely time for me to contact them and tell them that this feature needs to go back to beta!

And finally, since I am already in ranting mode, I have one more fact to tell you about.

This is my grandfather's brother, Herbert Austin Smith. He also served during the Great War and was taken prisoner by the Germans, spending the end of the war in a POW camp. And Mr. Trump, he was a hero.

Sepia Saturday 216: Suits and Hats

When I first saw the prompt for this Sepia Saturday, I immediately thought of one of the photos from my grandfather's albums from Bishops College School.  Something about this photo has amused me since the first time I saw it.

Prefects - 15

Bishops College School (BCS) was a prep school for boys only in Lennoxville, Quebec back when my grandfather and some of his brothers attended.  Today it is co-ed having amalgamated with King's Hall Compton, a girls' school, in the 70s.

This photo was taken by my grandfather, George Washington Smith, who was born on February 22, 1898.  He was a student in 1915 when he took this picture which includes his brother Herb (second from left) when he took this picture captioned in his album, "Prefects 15."

What I think I find amusing about this photo is that these four boys don't look like prefects to me; they look like they are having a very serious clandestine meeting, like the heads of four families, or their consiglieri.  Maybe it's the hats.  As was pointed out in the post for this week's prompts, hats did not survive as a fashion choice in the same way that suits have and these days we see them most often in period movies, or at Sepia Saturday.

Thank you for stopping by and giving me an excuse to share one of my favorite old photos.  Happy Sepia Saturday!

Sport Center Saturday - BCS and the Smiths

My grandfather, George Washington Smith, and at least two of his brothers attended Bishops College School in Lenoxville, Quebec as teenagers.

My grandfather's time there overlapped with his brother, Herbert Austin's, and because of his love of photography, we have a lovely collection of snapshots of both BCS and its sister school King's Hall Compton, where their sister Frances Ruth was a student.

Here are just a few, and I definitely recommend clicking on them for a more detailed view.

Herb

Boozie Louie Herb

Dormitory Football - "Tear 'em up!"