#52Ancestors Week 32 ‘Small’

Welcome to Week 32 of my Genealogy challenge, from the wonderful Amy Johnson Crow, of writing something about your Ancestors for a whole year, #52Ancestors in 52 weeks. This week’s prompt is ‘Small’.

Last week I introduced you to my largest Genealogical Family, so the obvious thing would be to look for the smallest, right? Nope, you should know me better than that by now! I am going off on a tangent and I’m going to give you an example of the ‘Small’ details that make all the difference.

A few years ago I received three photographs from my Aunt, all said to be my Great-Grandfather, Frank Day, at various stages of his life. The dates looked to all fit, but I still wasn’t one hundred percent certain, so I sent them into Family Tree Magazine to see if the wonderful Jayne Shrimpton could possibly confirm that the three images were indeed the same Man. Well I am delighted to say that Jayne was able to confirm that this was indeed my Great-Grandfather in all three images, but what Jayne said next, blew me away.

In my efforts to concentrate on the images, being one and the same man, I had totally missed the ‘Small’ detail in one of the images, see if you can also spot what Jayne saw, it’s easy when you know the answer! How did I miss it!!!

Now you are probably already thinking that you know the answer, this photo was taken in Sydney, Australia, but I actually already knew about this, so nope that’s not the answer.

In this Picture we see Frank Day standing, with his Father, Thomas Elisha Day seated and the young boy is Frank Day’s first born Son, Francis Norman Day (Frank Junior). Three generations of the same family, but nothing unusual to report here.

Frank Day taken in 1943, two years before he sadly died.

It’s the last Photo that holds they key to the ‘Small’ detail that I mentioned earlier. Have you spotted it???

The Badge, it’s the badge of The Royal Field Artillery, I missed it completely, it was only Jayne’s eagle eye that spotted it!

Tradition has it, that it was not unusual for people that had represented the Military previously, to display their badge, to show the next generation that “they had done their bit”. Now try as I can, so far, I am unable to find the reason behind his wearing of the Badge, he has no known Military connections with serving in WW1, he has no known siblings who could have served in WW1 and he has no known children that served in the Military. The nearest I can find to a connection with the War  is that he worked at an Aircraft Factory in Gloucester at the time of his Death. As with all things Family History related, as we discover something new, it raises just as many questions as it answers, but without that attention to detail and the ‘Small’ things, we might not solve as many as we possibly could. One day I shall return with the answer, but without the ‘small’ details, I wouldn’t have even looked!

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