Tom Melville MAURICE born Symonds Yatt in 1886 (General)

by markmaurice, Saturday, October 03, 2009, 07:05 (5605 days ago) @ m p griffiths

Thank you all, for all the info. Tom married a Gwinifred Staples in South Africa, they then moved to the UK for a few years,did not like it here and returned to South Africa. Gwinifred died young and Tom re-maried a Muriel McEwan (my grandmother) My father was born from this marriage so the 3 daughters from the first marriage were his half sisters.
I do believe that Tom lied about his age. He also claimed to have fought in Europe
and told my Dad a story about "being blown up at the battle of Mons" He had huge scars on his torso, which he claimed were as a result of this. A great tale I'm afraid, because there is no evidence of him having served in Europe.
Another confusing story that has been passed down, is that Tom's Dad helped build the "Aswan" dam,not the famous one in Egypt, but rather, a dam of the same name in India. I wonder if this suggests that Tom may have been born in India.

All very confusing but I'm determined to get to the bottom of it.

My Dad's name is Ewan Fredrick Denison. The Ewan, I imagine to be from his Mom's maiden name "McEwan" and then there were famous Maurice's with similar christian names....Maj. Gen. Sir Frederick Barton etc.