Robert Richards born abt 1788 (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, July 30, 2012, 16:02 (4494 days ago) @ unknown

Good afternoon Slowhands, nice to speak again, hope you're well?. Very sorry to read about David, thanks for the updates re the moving Service at Ruardean; please accept my belated yet sincere condolences to all his family and friends and thanks for his exceptional efforts for the Forest and Foresters.

Thanks for posting the Census Records for this thread, very helpful as ever. Yes I read and mentioned St John's Street/area in Monmouth, so this is clearly relevant, perhaps this was a local Parish before St Mary's Church ?. That said, St Mary's has been in situ and important for centuries before our men were there, so ??.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_Church_of_St_Mary,_Monmouth

Hi again Jenny, thanks so much for reproducing the CP records you obtained from FindMyPast, very helpfull to me in general as well as this query. So it seems you do get quite a lot of good detail from the site which is great, I find it hard to imagine you'll get more from The National Archives.
Without wishing to knock in any way your ancestors, given they were "just" two "lowly" footsoldiers within hundreds of thousands enlisted during these few years, I think such detail of records is incredible. I'm still certain the Militia Records I found for Robert Richards are your man, so many similarities especially with the attestaion date being identical, 23rd December 1807. Yes theres a few inches difference in height, but were the quoted numbers taken at the same stage in his 20 years service ?. I also know that very often these numbers were just visual estimates, not precise measurements, sometimes in boots and sometimes not. Sometimes "optimistic" heights were recorded to satisfy local Regimental requirements. Indeed, I visited a major London Hospital last month and was routinely measured barefeet by a trained nurse using a wallfitted rule. Despite my having back problems causing a distinct stoop, according to that nurse I am now officially 1.5" taller than at any other time in my life, including similar measurements many times in the last 2 years, so ???.

On that basis I still think it relevant that Robert enlisted at Llandeilo, rather than perhaps Brecon or Monmouth, this may be of use when searching for him on the 1841 Census and before that. As I was hoping for per my post yesterday, you're now in Goodhands with Slowhands.