Sunday, October 07, 2007

2007 Remembrance Day Project

As we quickly approach Remembrance Day 2007 I have been working to add the details of the final fate of all of the Milton Soldiers. The intent is to add to the basic information that was made available from the 2006 Remembrance Day Project by adding the following information:
  • a summary of what action caused their death
  • information from the War Diary for the unit on that date
  • background information on the ongoing battle of that period
  • any additional information of relevance, such as whether they died of wounds or were transferred to England or Canada before they died
During the Spring and Summer of 2007 I have been helping the Milton Historical Society rebuild their web site (see new MHS Web Site) and in exchange I now have a place to put the detailed summary pages. You will find these new pages here:

I started with the soldiers that were buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Milton, as that information was used for the cemetery tours as part of Milton's 150th Anniversary this summer. I am now in the process of going back through the records of the others, hoping to have this all complete by November 11, 2007. By mid October, I am half way through the rest of the soldiers.

During the spring and summer the Milton Soldier's grave stones in Milton were added to the Maple Leaf Legacy Project. To add a new twist to that project, I have also started to add the GPS co-ordinates for the grave markers, which are now linked via Google Earth to their ground level photo and detailed MHS page. Thanks to Steve Douglas at the Maple Leaf Legacy Project for sending me a number of grave site photos from the Milton Lads that are buried in European cemeteries - many of those have now been added to the blog and web site.

The Milton Soldiers Google Earth Page is now being upgraded to include the individual soldier place marks as they are completed, so you can reach any of these files by this direct link. The individual soldier pages are shown as "Replies" at the bottom of the primary page. As well as the soldiers buried in the Milton Evergreen Cemetery, I have started to add those that are commemorated at the Vimy Memorial (France), the Menin Gate Memorial (Belgium) and some of the European cemeteries (i.e. Vis-en-Artois, France). More will be added shortly.















The Service Records of the Milton Soldiers were obtained by John Challinor II who co-authored the book on Milton's Soldiers which was released in the Fall of 2006. I have now digitized all of these are they are available at the MHS Archives. If you are looking for information on a specific Milton Soldier, you can e-mail me at miltonsoldiers@gmail.com and I will upload the file on a case-by-case basis.