July 1916

(Learnt one thing yesterday – you can’t play around with the template, and still make postings without the template changes showing!)

Isn’t it nice when people are helpful – I’ve received three emails today from other researchers, passing on websites to look at.

That’s also one of the advantages of being in the Guild - other members will often bring to your attention sources which you might not have come across through your own research. Recently we were informed about the US Veterans Affairs Gravesite Locator, which I found contains 233 Parry entries. From that site I also learnt of the American Battle Monuments Commission, on which are the details for 11 other American Parrys who are commemorated elsewhere (in Europe or in Asia).

Which reminded me that I still needed to extract the names of the Parrys who appear on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site. There are 820 of them. I watched a program about the Somme yesterday, and about the battle for Thiepval in particular. Now I know that seven Parrys died there that first day of July 1916, two more on the 3rd, – by the end of the month, the total was at seventeen and, by the end of that year, at thirty five. The Thiepval Memorial has the highest number of Parrys listed on it, out of all the memorials on the CWGC site.

Sobering thoughts, and not what I had originally intended to write about today.