As part of our ongoing Heritage Lottery funded WW1 Hidden Histories project, the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park Heritage Volunteer Team have had the pleasant task of training new project volunteers. These ‘newbies’ have all been inspired by the project launch back in February and are keen to help out by researching the lives of some of the 205 men commemorated on the Cemetery’s War Memorial. A variety of on-line sources, the National Archive and local record offices will be used to provide invaluable information about the men’s service careers and other genealogical web-sites will build up a fuller picture of their home lives, their family and the life they left behind when they enlisted in the Great War.
Hopefully during the research process people will find that their families have personal memorabilia – letters, photographs etc – which they will share with the Heritage Team.
Some of the volunteers are researching a member of their own family who is buried in the Cemetery. Others are following up on a theme which particularly interests them such as a specific regiment in the Army, someone who lived near their home or simply a name or an occupation which sounds interesting.
The aim of the project is to build up a whole picture of each serviceman – as a man who was more than just a service number and a name on the War Memorial. The untimely death of each man had a profound impact on his home community as well as his own family.
If anyone would like to help out with the research, please contact the Heritage Team. We can help you with some training and the best places to start.
