Tag Archives: research

3rd Battalion, Archives, Remembrance, Research, Riflemen

What is the story of YOUR remembrance coin?

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Units of the Canadian Armed Forces often follow the tradition of presenting new members of the unit with a regimental coin.  These coins are normally serialized, based on the member’s date of service with the unit, with a registry of coins being held by regimental headquarters.

The coin is meant to be symbol of membership within the unit, with members expected to carry their coin at all times.  

During Lieutenant Colonel Fotheringham’s first term as Commanding Officer, then Company Sergeant Major Shaun Kelly created a unique initiative which incorporated the exclusive membership aspect of a regimental coin whilst also honouring the history of the Regiment.  Instead of a coin which is serialized to the member based on the date of service with the unit, members of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada are issued a coin with the particulars of a member of the Regiment who died during one of the wars which the Regiment fought in. They were first presented to members of the regiment on Remembrance Day 2002.

QOR Remembrance Coin reverse
Reverse of Remembrance Coin of Museum Curator Maj (Ret) John Stephens, CD.157601
Rfn E. Honeyford
D/W (Died of wounds)
16-Apr-1917 

The antique pewter like coin is 39mm in diameter. The Obverse has the Primary Badge surrounded by the name of the regiment and the regimental motto “In Pace Paratus”. The Reverse has inscribed the particulars of the member whom the coin is dedicated to:

  • Service Number;
  • Rank, Initials, Surname;
  • KIA or D/W; and
  • date of death.

A coin is presented to each member of the Regiment by the Commanding Officer or Regimental Sergeant Major on the first Church Parade which the member participates in after having been “badged” into the Regiment.

The Names Behind the Coins

 But carrying the coin is just the first step. Riflemen are strongly encouraged to research the soldier named on their coin and many do. This makes the act of remembrance much more meaningful.

On our Regimental Museum website we have a section called “Soldiers of the Queen’s Own” in which we are adding biographies of soldiers who have served in the regiment – during any period since 1860 – or in the First World War battalions that we perpetuate. To date we’ve only added a very tiny sampling.

But we want to continue to expand this depository particularly as we approach the centenary of the First World War. If you’ve researched the soldier named on your coin, we strongly encourage you to send us whatever information you have – it can be in point form – so that we can add it to our website.

Please email your information to museum@qormuseum.org and make sure you include all the details from your coin as a starting point.

Thanks,

Major (Ret) John Stephens, CD
Curator

General, Research

WANTED: Volunteer Historical Timeline Researchers

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We’re looking for a few work-from-home volunteers to help us prepare information for posting on our Historical Timeline. The task requires reading through Lieutenant Colonel W. T. Barnard’s The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada, 19860-1960: One hundred years of Canada to find “significant events” that we haven’t yet posted to our timelines listed below:

Note that we have two “specialty” timelines for uniforms and weapons which we’re also trying to populate.

Information can be submitted in the body of an email or in a WORD attachment and each date/event (following the format already being used including a [2] at the end of each entry as the reference to this source). Research should be emailed to museum@qormuseum.org directly.

If you’re interested in assisting with this project, you can indicate below which time period you would like to research (it can be a portion of the periods shown above) and we’ll confirm with you before you start just some we don’t end up with any overlap. Questions can also be posted in the comments below!

Thanks in advance!

First World War

The trench talk that is now entrenched in the English language

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“From cushy to crummy and blind spot to binge drink, a new study reveals the impact the First World War had on the English language and the words it introduced.”

“The results of the research are included in a new book, Trench Talk: Words of the First World War, which documents how new words and phrases originated, while others were spread from an earlier, narrow context, to gain new, wider meanings.”

Read more on The Telegraphy online.

3rd Battalion

Update on our Transcription Project for 3rd Bn War Diaries

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You may recall in that on September 3rd we launched an appeal on our website, Facebook Page and Twitter account for volunteers to assist with our project to transcribe scanned versions of the 3rd Battalion, CEF war diaries which were available online at the Library and Archives Canada website. The diaries consisted of 53 months of entries from October 19, 1914 when the battalion landed in England, to February 28th, 1919.

Today I’m pleased to announce that we received the final month’s of transcription which is now posted on our site! You can find them on our timeline or link to them directly: 1914 — 1915 — 1916 — 1917 — 1918 — 1919.

Twenty-seven people from around the world, volunteered to help with the project – especially after we posted our project on the “micro-volunteering” site Sparked (with many thanks to friend of the museum, Mr. Matthew Cutler for that suggestion!) International volunteers came from Chile, Australia, France and across the USA in Oklahoma, New York City, Pennsylvania, California, District of Columbia, Washington State, Colorado, and North Carolina. Many of Canadian volunteers come through the Museum Management and Curatorship Program at Sir Sanford Fleming College in Peterborough. Only two of the volunteers are involved with the military!

Although there were some challenges in interpreting handwriting or imperfectly scanned documents, many of the participants indicated how interesting (and in many cases sad) this project was and how it gave them a better understanding of day to day life in an allied infantry battalion of the First World War.

There is still a bit of tidying up to do on the pages and more links and a few map images to add but this now searchable transcription will definitely serve as a valuable research tool.

A big thanks to all those who volunteered:

  1. Captain Rita Arendz
  2. Catherine Caughell
  3. Shawn Mingo
  4. Private Michael McLean
  5. Tanya Probert
  6. Kathleen Watt
  7. Meg Dallett
  8. Katy Shaw-Kiso
  9. Meggan Green
  10. Emily White
  11. Elizabeth Harless
  12. Chauncey M. J.
  13. Emily Hamilton
  14. Leah-Ann Logel
  15. Hilary Lister
  16. Briar Sutherland
  17. Sarah McGall
  18. Bethany Kearsley
  19. Megan White
  20. Zoe Reilly-Ansons
  21. Ruth O’Connell
  22. Alison Dingledine
  23. Ruth Marie O’Connell
  24. Caylanne Lyall
  25. Filomena Pingiaro
  26. Ceci Leung
  27. Geraldine R.
3rd Battalion

3rd Battalion CEF War Diaries Transcription Project

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Help Needed!

We’re looking for assistance in transcribing digitized copies of the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces War Diaries for posting on this site. The 3rd Battalion, known as the Toronto Regiment, is perpetuated jointly by the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada and the Royal Regiment of Canada. Transcribing the diaries allows us to easily search them and link to specific names and events in the battalions history.

How this works:

  1. Review the list of scanned pages on our 3rd Battalion War Diaries Transcription Project Page. Pages in italics indicate that someone has already committed to transcribe them. Pages that have been completed will be removed from the list.
  2. Note that the diaries up until April 30, 1915 have already been transcribed by the Canadian Great War Project and are in the process of being posted onto our site.
  3. It is not necessary for everyone to transcribe chronological order – if there is a time period you are interested in feel free to take that on – however to keep things simple, please complete the transcription for at least a complete month at one time.
  4. We DO want to transcribe all pages entitled WAR DIARY. For this stage of the project we DON’T need to transcribe all appendices. “Messages” generally should be transcribed – Operations Orders should not – however please reference untranscribed appendices so that we can provide links to them.
  5. It is NOT necessary to transcribe index pages – We’ll try to remove them from this list when we have time.
  6. Send an email to museum@qormuseum.org to tell us you are interested in participating. In your email indicated which months/year you will be working on so we update our list and avoid duplication of effort.
  7. Please send you transcription in text format (not tables). You use Word or simply paste them into the text of your email. See the format to be used in this example for November 11, 1918. Please make sure you review or better yet, have someone else review your transcription for accuracy. Typed entries are pretty easy to copy but transcribing handwriting entries can sometimes be tricky!
  8. You do not need to save up all your transcriptions and send in at once. If you finish a month, please send them to us. We’ll try to post as quickly as possible.
  9. If you have any questions, please email us at museum@qormuseum.org and we’ll do our best to respond as quickly as possible with the caveat that we too, are all volunteers!

Thanks in advance for assisting us with this exciting project!!

Major John Stephens, CD (Ret)
Curator