Correcting History One Soldier at a Time

In a recent soldier post of Private James Hislop (Service No.: 54341) it occurred to me that the soldier record for him was incorrect. He was listed as serving in the 15th Battalion, Central Ontario Regiment at the time of his death. Since I had corroboration that he had served with the 18h Battalion through several sources, most notably his attestation papers and the records on file at the Commonwealth Graves Commission the staff at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial were contacted by email and they readily verified and corrected the entry.

I want to express my appreciation to them for doing this. With over 60,000 Canadian men and women dead from the First World War and all the data management and recording involved mistakes and omissions are expected. The staff at the CVWM were prompt in addressing this and it is our responsibility of the people from the future to honour those of the past in insuring, or attempting to, correct the records to reflect what happened.

Please note that I have not made an attempt to have the correct spelling of his name for two reasons. First, it is spelt Hislop on a primary source document. Second, philosophically, it represents a part or tone of history at that time. Though I cannot verify this it is my contention that Private James Hislop could neither read nor write and during his attestation process his attestation papers were signed by a Notary Public. The person typing out the papers extrapolated the spelling of the surname Hislop and the place of birth. In a letter to James’ Hislop’s father from Lieutenant Beeson I believe the correct spelling the surname is used.

In another development research came on upon an entry for a James Arthur Morton Shore at the Royal Bank of Canada’s First World War Roll of Honour. It listed this soldier at the rank of Lieutenant when he was a Private. Contact was made with this organization and RBC promptly replied to my inquiry and forwarded my supporting documentation to the appropriate resource. At the date of this post the entry has not been changed but I am confident it will be.

The evidence that he was not a Lieutenant and a Private is below.

Thanks again to all those staff at Veterans Affairs Canada and RBC for working to correct this information.