This is an adaptation of an article that appeared in the Kingston Parish Magazine in early 2026. The original was created at the start of the project. This is written towards the end of the main body of research and is written with the goal of helping any future researchers learn from my mistakes.
Over about 9 months, I have been trying to find out more about the Kingston men who served during the First World War. It has been a fascinating, moving but frequently maddening process. The research has taken me into village families, farm work, military bureaucracy, battlefield maps, old photographs, misremembered names, wrong initials, missing records and, in some cases, stories that run from Kingston to France, Ireland, Canada and Australia.
This page is intended to help future researchers avoid some of the errors I made, and fast-track them to making progress on refining and enriching these stories.
Paid-for databases
Most of the first stage of research was carried out through Ancestry.com, which gives practical access to many birth, marriage and death records, census returns and surviving military papers. With hindsight, quite a lot of relevant military material was more available on FindMyPast. Then Forces War Records also proved to have a lot of previously inaccessible records.
The challenge of subscription-based resources should not be under-estimated. While it is understandable that archival research resources need to be rigorously managed, scanned, documented, put in complex and efficient search directories, made accessible to the public and this all costs, and so needs monetising, it is frustrating beyond measure to need to take out multiple different subscriptions to find different, connected documents – for example many Ancestry records are semi-visible, but hidden behind a further paywall called Fold3. So, if researching, be prepared to need to spend about £200 per annum if you need access to all the key data bases. Only the National Archive remains effectively free as, by signing up for free, you can download 10 records per day without charge. However, they have outsourced many of their records to Ancestry and FindMyPast of the best quality images are back behind a paywall.
A surprise was how bad some records were. Typos and misreadings were very common, with random extra letters added to names, letters mistaken. Motto for example, might seem easy to research, but was all too often written as Mutto, Mutta, Motte or similar. There is a George Bailey who constantly came up in some searches, and took up a lot of time, only to realise that when one read his Attestation papers very closely, his place of birth was not Kingston, but Cottenham. But also family genealogist are sometimes terrible at looking in detail at records. On Ancestry it is possible to create family trees and for any named individual to build up a record of their life with the births and deaths of siblings, overseas travel, service records etc all connected. These can be very helpful in fast-tracking a family context in Kingston but must be treated with caution. About 30% were very obviously wrong, with dates meaning a child was born to a 12 year old, or a 60 year old. Names and stories very obviously (with a bit of experience) confused the Kingston man with the Kingston-upon-Thames man etc.
Free resources
On the flipside, there are some fantastic resources that are freely available. While they don’t give primary evidence, they help understand more detail from the official records, explain and put things in context and help to create the story rather than a reference document.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has the nearest possible comprehensive catalogue of all servicemen and women who were killed in both the first and second world wars. It was by searching this site that several of the new names of Kingston men were found.
The Imperial War Museum has a large and diverse catalogue, much of which is available online. Details of individual men is scant, but there is a large selection of photographs which gives a better impression of trench life that mere words can do.
The Long, Long Trail, has been particularly useful for understanding the structure of the Army, the movements of units, and the wider context of the war. This is a private venture by one dedicated individual but was extremely useful in understanding details like the Territorial renumbering, and the history of specific units.
The Great War Forum was also a helpful resource. Although not used actively, it produced a search return for Motto Allgood, which led to his story being discovered. It would always be worth a search for information, and perhaps a question, if you can structure it well enough not to waste the time of the volunteers who answer (ie don’t ask something you could search yourself, respect their knowledge and generosity of time).
Individual Regimental history websites – these were very varied in style, especially if the Regiment/Corps still had a recognisable modern unit – where the focus was on modern recruitment. Most regimental museums cannot afford online catalogues, and the relevance of the history they told on their sites, with specific reference to WW1 was variable and usually quite limited. That said, a further step not yet taken might be to book a visit to the Curator of the Suffolks Regimental Museum in Bury St Edmunds, which might give more details.
Photo collections. There were also some very niche websites that took up a lot of time searching but had to be searched for this project – sites containing collections of pictures of soldiers and regimental groups and the like. Too good to miss, fascinating to see, many rabbit holes investigated, but didn’t actually turn up any images.
References and Copyright
This project began with the expectation that a few paragraphs might be found about a few men. It expanded rapidly and unexpectedly. As there was no intention to do more than tell stories, references were not kept. With hindsight, it would have been better to do so, but in truth, many of the core documents are available on several of the websites above, and which one we used is not particularly relevant to the future researcher, they will find them all relatively easily. I have also kept folders for each man containing the files of records, screenshots etc where they were downloadable. They can be made freely available to anyone who wants to continue the research.
Issues of copyright are complex and ultimately come down to a judgement. it has been taken as read that the donation of these photos in circa 1919, presumably by families of these men, includes their future use for the same purpose of memorializing them. Therefore, they do not carry credits. Ancestry.com and its affiliate Forces War Records are clear that ‘reasonable use’ for non-commercial purposes is acceptable. While ‘reasonable use’ is a matter of judgement in each individual circumstance, it is usually accepted that where the material is directly evidencing a statement made in the higher work, such as a medal card showing a man’s service number, unit and entitlement to medals, that is a ‘reasonable use’. This covers the majority of images contained in the webpages. Find My Past seems to have tighter restrictions, but is still covered by a ‘reasonable use’ and the smaller number of images used are primarily the press cuttings, which again directly evidence the text by showing enlistment details or reporting of wartime service. Very few images are ‘decorative’ and simply give a general impression to enhance the research, and where they are used I have tried to give an appropriate reference and credit.
Personal names
Names continued to be a challenge throughout. The previous photograph display was created shortly after the war, but the names were not recorded. It was only in the late 1990s when the deteriorating photo collection was re framed, that names were collected. That was precious evidence in itself, but memory blurred names, missed people, and preserved nicknames rather than formal identities.
There was not a very wide range of names in use locally at the time. Families in Kingston also had close links with the Eversdens, Toft, Hardwick and Bourn, so the same names appear again and again across neighbouring villages. There seems to have been none of our modern hesitation about giving children the same names as cousins, uncles or aunts. In large families, where children might be born across a twenty-year period, identifying the right military record became surprisingly difficult. Even at the end, some men appeared to take a flexible approach to naming. William Rogers/Allgood we think we resolved, but there were some men who never used their middle name, when it would have aided identification, and other men who seemed to adopt a middle name that was not in their baptismal record.
Census records
Census records have been central to the work. The national census was taken every ten years, in years ending in 1: 1891, 1901, 1911 and so on. The latest publicly available census is currently the 1921 Census. By working through the 1901 and 1911 census returns, we have been able to identify men of service age living in Kingston before the war and then trace them, as far as possible, into military records. This revealed a few men who served but were not included on the previous display, often because they moved away from Kingston after the war.
However, even in the census there were naming inconsistencies, where perhaps a non-household census writer misheard names, or the household member used a familial name. This made being certain that Fred was Frederick, Jos was Joseph, not Josiah and the like difficult. The Lindsay’s seem to spell their name with an ‘a’ or and ‘e’ depending on some invisible factor, we found signatures and formal documents using both forms – we went with the ‘a’ version simply because it matched with the spelling used on the picture of the schoolchildren, already in the Village Hall
Photographs
The photographs themselves are both helpful and frustrating. The Army did not routinely photograph every soldier. Many men arranged studio portraits themselves, often to send home to their families. The images are wonderfully evocative, but they did not always give easy answers. Uniforms varied less than one might hope. A pace stick carried in a studio portrait was simply a photographer’s prop, intended to make the man look more martial and imposing. Lanyards were worn by many units, and without colour they rarely tell us much. There are, however, clues. A leather bandolier — a strap worn across the chest with small ammunition pouches —indicates that a man rode horses. That can help exclude ordinary infantry regiments and points instead towards the Royal Field Artillery, cavalry, transport units or similar. Shoulder badges sometimes helped, though in the Kingston photographs they are often too blurred to read. The most useful feature was usually the cap badge. Even when the detail was unclear, the general shape could sometimes narrow down the likely regiment and help connect a photograph to a medal record.
The photos were donated by family members at the time the original board was put together, we believe immediately after the war, therefore there is no reference to their sources. Names were not put to the photos until the late 1990s when the photo collection went through a previous refurbishment. At this point Peter Reynolds asked some of the older village residents to put names to the pictures. This goes some way to explaining many of the errors or alterations we found in the names. Men who were killed but had left the village before the war were missing. Men whose family had left Kingston post war were less accurately named (Bert/Bertie Rayner, George/David Thompson etc) than those that had a larger family connection – the Allgoods that remained and were written about in other village histories, as were the Custersons, and the Custances. A man with no apparent connection to Kingston had been included (Herbert Bester). A few photos seem to be incorrect. One man’s name had been forgotten entirely. All these errors seem strange if the collection was named from 1920, but is easily explained if people are being asked to recall after the passage of nearly 80 years.
The current photographs have been retaken digitally, retouched as lightly as possible by AI to remove the worst of the dust and aging, but left as ‘aged’. This was a harder process for the pictures found through the newspaper records, as these had been through a print process that was much harsher on facial details. The 1990 images have been retained. Perhaps this project will help discover additional pictures for those we only have low-quality, or no image.
Attestation papers
The best records, when they survived, were the attestation papers. These were created when a man enlisted. The process was surprisingly bureaucratic and produced a good deal of paperwork: age, occupation, physical description, place of birth, next of kin, regiment and service number.
Unfortunately, about 75% of First World War service records were destroyed and another 10% badly damaged in bombing raids during the Second World War. This means that finding a full attestation record is very fortunate. When one does survive, it can be the key that unlocks everything. Attestation papers are often the only records that directly connect a named individual to Kingston, to a service number and to a regiment. Without that link, it is easy to find a soldier with the right name but impossible to be certain he is our man.
Service numbers
Service numbers are another mixed blessing. Today, a service number usually stays with a person throughout a military career, unless they become an officer. During the First World War this was not the case. Men could receive new numbers when they changed units, and numbering systems changed as the Army expanded. In some ways this can be useful. Blocks of numbers were issued to particular regiments, battalions or recruiting areas, so a service number can sometimes suggest roughly when and where a man enlisted. In some units, it may even indicate a trade or branch of service. But it can also make a man’s journey hard to follow, especially later in the war when units were broken up, reorganised or used to reinforce other formations after heavy losses.
Medal record cards and Regimental medal records
The most consistent evidence of military service comes from medal records. These were not destroyed in the Second World War. The medal index cards record whether a man was awarded the Victory Medal, the British War Medal and, where applicable, the 1914 Star or 1915 Star. These cards often give a name, unit and service number, and sometimes the date on which a man first entered a theatre of war. But medal cards also have limits. They do not give place of birth. They often use initials rather than full names. So, if a man has been wrongly identified at an earlier stage, the medal record may simply reinforce the error rather than correct it.
Absent voters lists
The absent voters’ lists for 1918 and 1919 have proved especially useful. These were compiled so that servicemen who were away from home could still be included for voting purposes. They usually give the man’s name, his Kingston address, his unit and his service number. For local research, that combination is gold dust.
The men who died
Sadly, the men who died in the war were often easier to research than those who survived. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records are comprehensive and usually give unit, date of death, cemetery or memorial, and next of kin details. Once a unit and date of death are known, it is often possible to trace where that unit was serving and what was happening on that part of the Western Front. In some cases, the story can be followed almost hour-by-hour by combining records such as the Long Long Trail, with Regimental histories, with the Regimental war diary,
So, this project has taken the earlier information about Kingston’s servicemen a large step forward, but it is certainly not finished. It is not a complete or final account. Some men remain elusive. Some records contradict one another. Some identifications are confident; others are carefully qualified. I cannot say with confidence there are no errors, it might be that a story has been confused, that the wrong identification has been made, or a line of records confused. However, the greatest concern lies with the photographs. Frederick Lindsay’s photo does not match the record that could be pieced together for the man from Kingston. The Custerson twin’s photo seems to be of Robert, not David, yet David is believed to have seen the original collection. And we have a clearly identifiable picture of one man, to whom we cannot yet pin a name with any certainty. And one of the most frustrating – a clear picture of Sidney Thomas Chapman, yet no service record that seems to fit.
Oral history
What has become apparent, especially when trying to look into what the men who returned might have done when they came back from the war, is that time is running out to capture memories. A man who served in the First World War aged 18 to 40, likely died in the 1960s to 1980s. Therefore, anyone who had a detailed conversation with that man is likely to be in their 60s to 80s themselves in 2026. Time is running out to capture any first hand memories of these men. Charlie Richmond remembers David Custerson. Sidney Chapman has a grandson in Madingley who remembers his Grandad Sid, but no details of his life. These are the only two men for whom I found any living recollection. Without these living recollections, we will be reduced to administrative history alone, and the efficiency of Army clerks and modern database managers.
Having accepted all the shortcomings of this research, what we now have is a stronger foundation on which to find out more. Alongside the final picture board of 38 men, we will share what we can of their stories. They are not all the same kind of story. Some men volunteered when over-age, some likely under-age. Some men were killed, some survived wounds, illness and captivity. Some returned to Kingston, others moved away or emigrated. Some can be followed in detail through surviving service papers; others survive only in fragments — a name, a number, a medal card, a grave, a blurred cap badge in a photograph.
Taken together, however, they give us something more than a list of names. They show how the war reached into ordinary village life: into farm labouring families, cottages on Great Lane, houses on the Green, Kingston Pastures, The Chequers, brothers, cousins, neighbours and workmates. The hope is that, as these stories are shared, they may prompt memories, photographs, family papers or further research.