WW1 SAUNDERS family soldiers, Lydney; help please ? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, October 26, 2018, 01:57 (2009 days ago) @ pauline anne

Hi Pauline,
thanks for your kind words. I'm pleased you have family members in the forces, and wish them well in long careers helping to keep us all safe.
Yes the Sungreen site is excellent, that's certainly a great photo of your Dad, it's here for those who are interested.
https://www.sungreen.co.uk/Lydney-LGS/LGS-1stXV-1935.html

I must say I think you're lucky finding that one, as you know photos of any kind are quite rare for our ancestors unless we were quite well-off, especially ones as clear as this one, it was clearly taken by a professional photographer.

As hinted earlier I've tried searching for Victor Saunders in the old newspapers, using the British Newspaper Archive website. I don't currently have a subscription but their free search still gives a clue as to what may be found, I've found a few brief mentions of his death but I don't think there's a photo linked to it - the usual format at the time meant that they would often include a photo of a servicemen who had been killed at the head of an article, yet sadly the accompanying text would also list a great many more names, such were the horrific daily casualty rates.

If you are interested in finding these or any other articles, the BNA site allows newcomers a few free downloads before they start charging, so before downloading anything I recommend a good methodical search first. To find the following entries I used the filters to focus on just Gloucestershire and the year 1918, but didn't include his full name as often too much info confuses the BNA search engine.

The articles I found, there may be more, include this text;

"Mr. and Mrs. John Saunders. Hill-street. Lydney, have received news that their son. Corporal Victor John Saunders, was killed in action in France on March 19th. The deceased ...."
Published: Saturday 06 April 1918
Newspaper: Gloucester Journal

"THE MILITARY MEDAL
... been hit in both legs, but the damage was not great. The gallant Captain added that three other Lydney men in his own Company were victims — Pte. Victor Saunders (29), single, ..."
Published: Saturday 06 April 1918
Newspaper: Gloucestershire Chronicle

I hope this link takes you to my findings on the BNA site. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search/results/1918-01-01/1918-12-31?basicsea...

The old newspapers were great at reporting sport, I've traced several generations of my mother's family thro' their cricketing exploits for Longhope village right back into the 1860s, so you may well be able to find references to your rugby-playing ancestors if you look long and hard enough. Subscriptions for the BNA site are not expensive if you take out short ones, and if you've thoroughly searched the site before taking out the subscription, making notes of what you found and where, during that short subscription you can still download literally hundreds of newspaper pages if you so wish. When you first sign-up to search the site, and just give them your name and email address, to get your free downloads, they may well send you special offers in the future, in the past I've gained a week or even a month's full subscription for just one pound ! However please note the Forest's main local newspaper, the DF Mercury and sister the Lydney Observer, are not available on any online sites, but can be viewed on microfiche at Cinderford library.