37 Belmont Road West Derby

My paternal great-grandfather, Charles Neal, was born and raised in West Derby Village, a suburb of Liverpool, England. I have been tracing his line and have found many generations of my Neal, Boardman, Johnson and Burrows families living in the village of West Derby. I have found this particular geographical area to be one of great genealogical records, many available free of charge! A while ago I found something even better about this area. My mother-in-law's partner, Tony, is actually from Liverpool and grew up right next to West Derby.

We found this out after Tony was over for dinner at my apartment one night. I have many old pictures hanging up and one of them was of my ancestor John Neal's green grocer and fruiterer store. Tony asked about the picture and I told him about how I had family who came from West Derby. He got really excited because that was just down the road from where he grew up. It even turns out that his sister lives on the street behind the one where my Neal family was living in 1901. 

John Neal's store, probably located in West Derby or Liverpool, Lancashire, England.

Tony was over visiting his sister just a couple of weeks ago and offered to take some photos of the area for me. According to the 1901 English Census John Neal was residing at 37 Belmont Road with his wife Alice and 6 of their children, Lillian, John, George, Charles, Alice Regina and Florence. John's occupation was listed as caretaker at a technical institution and gardener (domestic). Tony went looking for No. 37 Belmont Road, but unfortunately the building has been demolished. It was located right next to the Lido Cinema, a popular hang out from 1914 until the 1990s. at which time it was also demolished. If you click on the link for the Lido Cinema you will be taken to a website with an early picture of the cinema. Number 37 can be seen next to it. Tony remembers cutting across the lawn of 37 Belmont Road to get to the cinema. 

35 and 37 Belmont Rd. The industrial building on the right is where 35 and 37 would have stood.

31 Belmont Rd.

Village of West Derby

Entrance to Lord Derby's estate

St. Mary's Church of West Derby (this the Church my family attended and the one where Charles Neal was baptised)

I'm so grateful to Tony for taking these pictures for me and I hope that one day soon I can go and visit West Derby for myself!

Corporal Malcolm "Mac" Mackinnon Inglis

In honour of Remembrance Day I wanted to share a little bit about one of my family members who served our country. I've decided to talk about my Grandad, Malcolm "Mac" Mackinnon Inglis, who passed away almost a year ago. If you knew Grandad you knew he loved talking about his part in the war and I'm sure he'd be thrilled I'm sharing some of it with you.

Mac was a corporal in the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps. They were an administrative part of the army so he didn't see active combat. However he still provided a valuable role in maintaining and servicing the weapons. Doing this actually caused him to lose some of his hearing. I remember Grandad telling me about the fun he had with his army buddies. One night they went to the movies to see an action pic. Knowing munitions intimately they were all familiar with the weapons featured in the film. In one scene there was a big shoot out where they would have obviously run out of bullets, but miraculously kept shooting. All of the lads shouted "RELOAD! RELOAD!". This always made him laugh. 

World War II records are difficult to get a hold of if your relative wasn't killed in action. So I don't know much about what he actually did other than what he had shared with me. On the other hand I do have a lot of photos so I thought I would share some with you. Enjoy!

Lest we forget.

1943

Grandad is in the middle row 4th from the left (sorry for the glossy lights, it is a framed photo and difficult to scan)

Duffel bag

The Neals and their close call with the Titanic

Putting your ancestors in historical context is an important part of well-done research, but often so easy to overlook. It's important to always think about local and world events that they would have lived through and played a defining role in their lives. And quite frankly its also just cool. Last night while doing some research I came across a great example of this.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but happened to find the passenger list for the ship my great-grandfather, Charles Neal, sailed on when he immigrated from England to Canada in 1912. His father, John Neal, came to Canada the previous year to presumably get established and send for the rest of his family later. The time came and in 1912 his wife Alice Johnson, son Charles and daughters Regina and Florence all made the voyage together.

Neal Family in 1915 (Back to front): Regina, Charles, Alice, John and Florence.

The foursome traveled in 3rd class on a ship called the Laurentic. The Laurentic was a passenger ship used for travel between Liverpool and Quebec City. It was owned and operated by one of the most prominent companies at the time, the White Star Line. You may recognize the name as being the company that also owned the Titanic. Its interesting enough that the ship they sailed owned on was owned by such a famous company, but it gets more interesting when you think about when they sailed. The family's date of departure was May 11, 1912, exactly 26 days after the sinking of the Titanic.

Laurentic passenger list showing Neal family
Image courtesy of the National Archives, London, England

The Titanic is still hugely popular today, and it would have made all the news at the time. The family also lived in the area where the Titanic was built and set sail from, so you can only imagine how exposed to the story they would have been. To set sail on a ship owned by the same company, leaving the same port and travelling relatively the same route must have been on the forefront of their minds. I don't know if the family had bought their tickets before the sinking of the Titanic, so its hard to say what its sinking had on their travel plans. It would be great to know if they bought the tickets afterwards because they were discounted or if they had already bought them and decided to go ahead with the voyage anyways. Unfortunately I probably won't ever know the answer to those questions.

SS Laurentic

The SS Laurentic itself also had a tragic ending tied up in world events. During the First World War it was converted to an armed merchant cruiser. On January 25th, 1917 she struck several mines and sunk. 354 people on board were killed.

While they weren't on the Titanic itself, I still think it is really cool to think about how close my family was to such a major world event.

John Neal and the Canadian Army Medical Corps

I was visiting my grandmother and we were talking about family members who served in the First World War. She mentioned that her Uncle John Neal was killed in the war. From my great-grandmother's papers I knew that already. She had noted that he was killed in October of 1918. With this being the 100th anniversary of WWI, I have been very keen on tracing all of my ancestors who served. So expect to hear more about other people in the coming weeks and months.

Albert Edward John Neal was the second child and first son of John Neal and Alice Johnson. He was born July 19, 1886 in West Derby, Lancashire, England. In the 1891 England Census he is listed with no occupation meaning he was still a child living at home and not attending school. In the 1901 England Census he was working as a telegraph messenger. It does not appear that he received much education, but rather entered the workforce. I haven't been able to track him down on the 1911 census yet. John Neal Sr. immigrated to Canada in 1911, with his wife following him in 1914. So presumably John Jr. immigrated within that time frame.

We next find him on September 23, 1914 enlisting in the Canadian over-seas expeditionary force to serve. This is only 50 days after Great-Britain has declared war. John Neal was obviously a very patriotic person who felt it was important to serve his adopted country while protecting his home country. His attestation paper shows that he was working as a hospital attendant. He also was currently in an active militia unit. His next-of-kin is listed as his father living in Englehart. He was 5 ft 9 ins, with a dark complexion, brown eyes and dark brown hair. His religious denomination is the Church of England.

John Neal Sept 23, 1914 Attestation Paper-first page

With his experience as a hospital attendant it made sense to put him in the Canadian Army Medical Corps. He became a private in the 2nd Canadian Field Ambulance. This ambulance was organized at Valcartier in September 1914 under Lt Col D.W. McPherson. They arrived in England on October 15, 1914 with a force of 11 officers and 245 other ranks. They arrived in France in February 14, 1915. 

The members of the field ambulance would be at the front lines helping clear and treat casualties to be transported to hospitals. This was dangerous work that would involve making difficult life and death decisions on a daily basis about who could be saved and who was too far gone. 

In April of 1916 the 2nd Field Ambulance was in the Netherlands and experiencing heavy casualties. On April 17th five members of the unit were wounded in action and another three were killed; Ptes. Neal J., Proctor J.D., and Murcott A. The unit was in Kruisstraat a small town in the central Netherlands. The unit's war diary describe the day as follows, "Heavy shelling in this area, and all around DUGOUTS occupied by our men."

2th Field Ambulance, Canadian Army Medical Corps War Diary April 17, 1916

CEF Commonwealth War Graves Register for John Neal

So tragically Private John Neal was killed earlier than I had originally thought. He was 30 years old. John is now buried in the Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery in Belgium near the town of Ieper, or Ypres. The War Graves Commission website show that it is a well maintained cemetery that I would love to visit one day and pay my respects. I unfortunately have no pictures of this brave man to show you, but hopefully one day I can find one. In the meantime I am happy to share his story.

Richard Bailey Railway Connections

It is amazing the people you meet doing genealogy. I've come across many distant relatives and we've helped each other with our common research interests. Just a short while ago I had one of these connections with a 4th cousin once removed related through a common ancestor Richard Bailey.

Richard Bailey was born about 1802 in Leigh, Rutland, England. He married Elizabeth Underwood (1808-1888) and together they had at least 6 children; Lydia, Thomas, Eliza, Mary, William Robert and George. The family lived in Whymondham where Richard was a gate/ lock keeper for the Syston and Peterborough railway.

The earliest record I could find of Richard was the 1841 census, where is first mentioned as being a lock keeper. The 1851, 1861, 1871 show his occupation as being the same. The family lived in the gate house which unfortunately is no longer standing.

Through my family connection I was able to see this great articles and photo that another relative had posted on their online tree. The articles detail the cause of Richard's untimely death, a railway accident. For reasons unknown he fell on the tracks and was run over by the train which was travelling about 20 miles an hour. An inquiry determined the cause of death was an accident.

I was so excited to find this information and it wouldn't have been possible without the help of others!

The Mysterious Inglis Brothers

I have two amazing photos of my great-grandfather, Malcolm McKinnon Inglis, and his three brothers. From my research I know their names are Peter, John, and William Inglis. All of the brothers were born in Lanarkshire, Scotland between 1881 and 1895. This photo would have been taken in Scotland before 1911 when my ancestor immigrated to Canada. 

I don't have many pictures of my great-grandfather as a younger man, but I have enough of them that I could figure out that he was the man in the bottom left in the first photo, and back left in the second. However I had no other photos of the brothers that would help me identify them. The usual techniques to guess who they are were of no help here. If they were younger I could hopefully tell which ones looked older and younger than the others. Using my research to back me up, I could make an educated guess about the ages. However, the brothers are all really close together in age to being with and they're old enough here that its difficult to distinguish them. So they remained unknown.

Photo One

Photo Two

And for a couple of years I had these photos knowing they were the Inglis brothers, but not who was who. That was up until a couple of days ago. Recently I have been going through and diligently scanning all of my un-scanned photos. I came across a couple of labelled ones that have helped solve this photo mystery. I couldn't believe my luck when I came across two slightly older pictures of William and Peter. They still looked similar enough and I could figure out who they were in the older two photos.

William Inglis
On the back "1914-1918, Lieut. Wm. Inglis HLI"

Peter Inglis
On the back "Peter, Engineers, 1914-1918"

Finally I had labelled photos of two of three mystery men! By process of elimination I could identify the third. My Mom and Dad came over last weekend and we had a look at the photos. We think that William is back right in the first photo and bottom right in the second. He has a distinct long face that stood out in all the photos. We had a tougher time picking out Peter as he seems to have aged quite a bit since the first photos were taken. Eventually though we decided he was bottom right in the first and back left in the second. His ears were what convinced us in the end. So that just left John as back right in the first and bottom right in the second. 

These two photos were such a great find as they have helped solve something that was bothering me for a long time. I find it so much more enjoyable to do research on people when I can visualize what they look like. It gives me a deeper connection and encourages me to delve further into their past. The other great thing that has come of this is the previously unknown service of the Inglis family in the first World War. I'm hoping to do some research on them in time for Remembrance Day.

Back: Malcolm, Peter
Front: John, William