Info plea on war soldier
One hundred years ago on April 26 this year one of my Sunderland born ancestors, James Broom Baird, died from wounds received in battle.
I discovered his death when tracing my family history on the website Find My Past, which has a copy of a newspaper article taken from The Sunderland Echo, May 7, 1917.
The article was entitled Local Casualties and stated that Mrs Isabella Baird (Gosforth Street) had been informed of the death of her son Private James Baird.
On finding the article I began to research James’s final resting place, but could find no official record of this death on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, nor in the indexes of the General Register Office.
I also located his name (alongside those of 20 other Sunderland soldiers) on the Sunderland Echo ‘Roll of Honour’, under the heading ‘Names Found in Sunderland Echo but Not Official Records’.
Obviously, failure to find an official death record was somewhat bizarre, as James had apparently been wounded several days prior to his death and there was no obvious reason why his body would not have been laid to rest.
Thankfully, with some assistance from the North East War Memorials Project Team, I have now been able to establish that James Broom Baird had actually served in the London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) under the alias James Wilson.
The CWGC have accepted the evidence I submitted to them and have agreed to update their records to show his birth name and that he served under an alias.
In addition, they have agreed to replace the headstone on his grave.
James Broom Baird/ Wilson is buried in St Sever Cemetery Extension in Rouen, France.
By chance I pass through Rouen regularly and I have already been to pay my respects and I will do so again in the near future, when hopefully the new headstone will be in place.
If anyone reading this letter would like any further information or a photograph of his grave then please contact me via my email janp53@live.co.
And if anyone can suggest why he used an alias then I will be delighted to hear from them. Mrs J Pallett, Chelmsford