YOUR LETTERS
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The satisfaction of a fact found
I’ve just finished reading the final few pages of the Christmas issue of Family Tree magazine. One of your readers’ letters just solved a mystery for me! Warren and Judy Hoole wrote about the names inscribed on the Menin Gate. They couldn’t understand why their ancestor, who was KIA (killed in action) in October 1917, was included on the Menin Gate, when an article in an earlier issue stated that only the names of those missing with no known grave who died up to and including 15 August 1917 were inscribed on the Menin Gate. The response was that this cut-off date didn’t apply to troops of the AIF (Australian Imperial Force).
Although I’ve been researching military ancestors in detail for a few years now, I hadn’t paid attention to this 15 August 1917 cut-off date. This explains to me why my great-uncle George Heron, 1/7th Gordon Highlanders, who was killed in the Battle of Cambrai on 20 November 1917, but whose body was not found and identified until 1931, wasn’t included on the Menin Gate. This was like scratching an itch I couldn’t reach – I thought I was misinterpreting the documents I’d found, when I was actually missing this little, but crucial, fact.
This is an example of the information consistently found in Family Tree that makes the rest-of-world subscription cost of this magazine (not a complaint, just a statement of fact) so worth it to me!
Patsy Javor