How's everybody doing over here?

I'm taking a much-needed break from poring over the Canadian election polls in hopes of seeing signs that the growing student revolution will overturn, or at least badly frighten, the hard-right government in the May 2 election.

Instead, I'm looking up family history and realized there's a gap in my photo albums.

My great-uncle, David Conacher, is buried at BRETTEVILLE-SUR-LAIZE CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY near Cintheaux, off route N158 between Caen and Falaise.

Anybody who could photograph his grave marker for me would earn my undying gratitude and a bottle of their preferred tipple, as it may be some years (if ever) before I get back there to do it myself.

I am also missing a photo of my great-great-uncle-by-marriage's grave from WW1 but I haven't got a location for that one yet.

Anybody? Or an online source of cemetary photos that might have it?

Your great-uncle was a libérateur? I'm stuck in Paris for the forseeable future (til June at least) but if I'm ever round there I'll try to have a look. It's a pity, a guy from the office was in Normandy just last w/e - I could have asked him.

There might be some of our lot going for the commemorations, so I'll see if I can get one of them to do it when the time comes.

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My maternal grandfather's brother was killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915 and is buried in a cemetery called Dud Corner.

That would be awesome, Zichao (I still am not used to calling you that, mon cherie. Can't I go back to your old name?). But of course asking for favours from co-workers can be costly so don't do anything you don't want to.

Great-uncle David landed in the second wave on D-Day and fought through to the Falaise Gap before getting blown to smithereens - possibly by his own side's air power; plus ca change and all that - about 10 weeks later. You might with truth say his war experience was nasty, brutish and short.

Looking at blown-up photos of war graves is an anti-war lesson if ever there was one. Especially in a WW1 burial ground, where you can have hundreds of young men with the same death date, and not one of them over the age of 20.

The other great-uncle survived the trenches for almost a year. I have discovered his grave site in a few hours of dedicated surfing. He is interred in Belgium, in the nicely-named "Woods Cemetary". It says right on the website that it's not wheelchair or wheeled-vehicle accessible so even if I went, I couldn't go. Anybody near Ieper, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium?

Actually, Belgium is a better prospect for me as I know a bunch of people there and might have to go myself later in the year. I'll scout about and see what I can do.

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Originally Posted by contracycle

Dud Corner.

That's flattering...

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Hi Jayne! Are you aware of the "Find a Grave" website? Here is a record of your relative.

... Sorry! I just noticed -- the entry was made by you !

That was me. I had a busy night in cyberspace. Who knew there were whole tribes of people dedicating their lives to finding and documenting graves? I might have to re-think my lifelong commitment to cremation.... although a 2-kg bag of ashes could have been shipped home from Europe easily enough.

If anybody does go near either of those cemetaries, I hope you'll take a minute to ask for my kin's coordinates and send me a photo. I'd really appreciate it.

Back to politics - a scandal a day but none of them very exciting.

You don't need to ask anybody. Graves are numbered to make them easy to find on a graveyard. In the case of your relative, the identification number is: Plot: XIII. A. 7.

The "Find a Grave" memorial website is a marvelous thing. There are thousands of individuals helping to identify graves and photograph the tomb stones.

W.r.t. U.S. (or Canadian) Memorial Graveyards, where the fallen of the different wars are buried, it is the U.S. (Canadian) Government that uploads the basic information to the "Find a Grave" memorial website to help the family of the fallen identify the last resting place of their loved ones.

These (mechanically generated) military memorials are necessarily bare-bones, i.e., they don't offer much information beyond the name/rank of the soldier and his date of death.

If you have more information about a fallen soldier available, such as his date of birth or the name of his spouse or whatever, you can contact the person currently in charge of the grave, and he'll gladly transfer the ownership of the memorial to you so that you can add additional information as you see fit.

If you click on CWGC/ABMC, the link will tell you how you can contact the current owner of the memorial.