As usual, I have left things late. It’s the Numismatic Society tomorrow and, as part of my drive to injecting a little more life into it, I want to take a small display down. I did some research on an item last night, about two hours, plus a bit I’d done a few weeks ago, so probably three hours in all.
It’s a Sacriston Tribute Medal, which I have mentioned before.
I checked the man out, his family, his military history and the war memorials he was on (he was killed in action in 1916) and was quite pleased with myself for putting it all together. Then I thought I’d better do one final check, just to make sure that there was only one man of that name in the village. It had been niggling me all night that his rank on the medal was Private, but his military records showed Sapper and Lance Corporal. Sapper is the Royal Engineers equivalent of Private, and Lance Corporal is an appointment, not a rank, so L/Cpls are often still counted as privates by the army, so it could, I told myself, be right. But then again . . .
So I checked. There’s another man of the same name in the village in 1911. He was also there as a child in 1901, so it’s likely he was there for 1914-18 too. So, I may have spent hours researching the wrong man. And I still have other things to do to make a decent display.
Moral of the story – don’t just do your research – do it in the right order!
Sacriston Tribute Medal – Obverse
Sacriston Tribute Medal – Reverse
That story would make a worthy presentation
Yes, I’m thinking of it. 🙂
A valuable lesson as well as a good story. Who could ask for anything more?
🙂 Yes, it was annoying at the time, but useful.
You can just present it as such. “I believe this is the story of the man who earned the medal” works. It very well may be the right person. I’m guessing there’s no way to know anything for certain from that long ago.
I hope you have a wonderful meeting and that a new face (or two!) shows up.
We are having a talk on Coronation medallions by someone who has never done a talk before – he has a very good collection so as long as he is reasonably interesting it will be good.
The trouble is that I am fairly sure that the medallion is to the “wrong” man. 🙁
However, it is now the basis of an interesting article on reasearch pitfalls. 🙂
At least you are exhuming his life story so others will know. Well done!
Yes, I found a photo of the man who died, though it’s very poor quality. I also found a fiance in my fact checking.It may be the wrong man, but at least I’ve brought a story back to life. And I learnt a valuable lesson for myself. 🙂