Strange diary page
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by
20jhall
So I have encountered a strange diary page. Any suggestions on what it might be?
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It looks like a Cover Page for the diary of the No. 8 Field Ambulance October 1914.
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
It is. No need to do anything more than just classify it as a cover page.
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by
20jhall
in response to ral104's comment.
That's the thing though, it isn't a cover page
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Here is an example of another Cover Page on this link which is set out the same as the one you mention:
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by
cyngast
moderator
in response to 20jhall's comment.
It's not a formal cover page, but somewhere along the line, possibly many years after the end of World War I, someone jotted down the name of the unit as No. 8 F.A., meaning 8th Field Ambulance, and Oct '14 for the time period the following pages cover and stuck this page in front of those pages. Although there were rules and regulations covering how it was to be written, each individual diary has its individual quirks. In addition, many diaries have been taken apart and reassembled by various researchers and archivists since the war's end; this is where some of the cover pages come from. In the field at the time they were written there were also different ways of indicating the unit and date of each diary as it was submitted for review.
So, long story short, a cover page for our purposes is any page that indicates as its primary information the name and number of the unit and the dates of the diary section that follows. Some are typed up on brown or blue paper with division, brigade and unit included, some were handwritten by the author in the field and may included the author's signature, and some are barely legible jotted down notations like this one.
Hope this helps. Ask away if you have more questions.
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