R.H. Roulstone
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How is it that I can't find some names of officers in Lives of the first world war?
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Maybe because they are not all recorded.
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josiepegg
you can also try the medal rolls at the National Archives - you can try asterisks for some of the more indecipherable letters.
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cyngast
moderator
It can be tricky finding officers! I'm pretty sure this is your man, though: Robert Henry Roulston https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/lifestory/3834115 I found him by trying different spellings: Roulestone, Roolstone, and finally Roulston. It's interesting that the link from @josiepegg above also leads to him even though she used Roulstone for the search. Notice that the results show his name as Roulston.
Note that his name on the nominal roll is misspelled, adding an 'e' to the end. This can be one issue with finding officers. (When an O.R.'s name is spelled incorrectly, we at least have a service number as back up!) Also, in many cases officers were attached to the unit, which I think contributed to incomplete records and misspelled names. Not always, but it seems to happen frequently. This also makes it difficult to search by regiment. For this reason, when I searched on Lives I narrowed the choices down to Surname, British Army, and Second Lieutenant, rather than selecting a regiment.
You can also try to search with just one initial. I recently could not find a Capt. A.J.P. Thornton. When I did a Google search he turned up in a couple of places but nothing at Lives or the National Archives. He was finally located by searching for A Thornton. It turned out he was listed as just Augustine Thornton without the J or P.
In the end, you just have to try different ways to find him.
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erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be
in response to cyngast's comment.
When you find an officier of which you are "pretty sure", do you tag him as found in the diary and use #error in the comment box?
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cyngast
moderator
It's probably also worth mentioning that the Medal Cards are not always correct. I've been tagging the 8th Royal Dublin Fusiliers and was looking for a man killed on 1 April 1916. I found a match for surname, first initial (I was looking for his full name), and service number, but both Lives and the National Archives showed him as being with a unit called the Railway Defence Force. I'd never heard of that, so I looked it up and found it didn't exist until 1920, so this man could not possibly ever have been with that unit! Finally I realized that Railway Defence Force and Royal Dublin Fusiliers are both abbreviated RDF!
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cyngast
moderator
in response to erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be's comment.
If you're not certain that you've found the correct officer, yes, you should tag him as he appears in the diary and use #error to alert researchers that this might not be the correct spelling and include what you think is correct.
In this case, it seems certain that R.H. Roulstone is Robert Henry Roulston, so you could tag him with his full name and corrected spelling, particularly since the spelling difference is so small.
I'm sorry that my use of "pretty sure" was confusing. I will try to be more definite in my comments!
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erik.schaubroeckscarlet.be
in response to cyngast's comment.
Maybe I misunderstood "pretty sure", me being not english.
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cyngast
moderator
I'm not English, either, Erik. I am American, and sometimes there are small differences in how we say things. I try to avoid using American slang on the boards, but sometimes I don't notice it.
We really appreciate your efforts.
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David_Underdown
moderator
It's also worth noting that officers had to actually claim their medals. If they didn't there may not be a medal card for them (and so no Lives entry unless it's been created manually).
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