Playing Sherlock

When his biography first appeared on our "We Will Remember Them" page and in the Grimsby Telegraph, George James Austin’s story was sadly lacking in anything but the most basic information.  “Able Seaman, Merchant Navy

Born 1897-1900 (stone says age 40, death records say age 43)

Died 18/08/1940, Age 40, at Immingham

Buried 04/09/1940

Address: 20 Hart Street, Cleethorpes”

 I didn’t know whether he was a local lad or an incomer, who his parents were or if he was married and had children. I felt bad because I had failed to do him justice compared to some of the other biographies I’d put together, so with an appearance of his biography on our Facebook page imminent, I decided to have another go at it.

Sometimes, it only takes a small clue to start the ball rolling and in this case, it was George’s address at the time of his death. As the 1939 Register (on Findmypast.co.uk) had only been produced the year before, I thought it might be worth searching by the address and whilst I didn’t find George, I did find his wife Alice and his 12-year old daughter Sylvia. A search on Ancestry.co.uk for Sylvia’s birth presented Alice’s maiden name, the rather unusual Eyeions, which in turn led to a Cleethorpes marriage record from 1922, giving George’s father’s name.

A search on both father and son’s names produced census records, which showed that George was indeed a first generation Grimsby-born Austin born 1897, meaning that the age information on his gravestone is unfortunately wrong.

Very quickly, George had parents, eight brothers and sisters, a wife and daughter and geographical locations in Grimsby where he had grown to a teenager, but what of the years between those census records and his death in 1940?

His Royal Naval Reserve record from World War One was indexed on Ancestry.co.uk and directed me to the record proper on the National Archives website. These records can be instantly downloaded for a small fee and they give details of vessels served on, dates of enlistment and demobilization, addresses, parents’ names and wonderful information about the person’s appearance, which begins to put a little flesh on the bones in the absence of a photograph.

Whilst you generally need to pay, either through subscription or one-off fees, to view the documents that will provide you with the information you need, sometimes it pays to just Google your prey. In George’s case it took me to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary History Society website, which revealed the name of the vessel he was attached to at the time of his death, together with photographs and some excellent information about what its role was in World War Two.