Family Research - Quarter Master Barton Howard

[eileen]

Mr. O'leary, I was wondering how to find my great grandfather, he served in the Boar war, as a Quarter Master, but I don't know for what army, my Grandfather, his son, served in the Canadian Black Watch, my dad, Black watch, Navy and RCR.  I saw a picture a long time ago in a book with a red cover, with photo's of soldiers in the Boar War and it was a thin book with canvas red hard cover.  He was Quarter Master Barton Howard.  My dad and grandfather always lived in Montreal, until my father joined RCR and Married.  I am guessing great Grandpa was from there too.  I was wanting to find his buriel site and what army he served with way back then and what rank he came out of service at.  I have no way to get info as all my relatives are gone now. Can you just let me know how to start looking. I can't find the red book.  It was a good book with Boar war info. but it just said his rank at the time and a photo that I love, as he was the spitting image of my father and my brother, but nothing like his own son, Colonel Howard Black Watch.

[Michael OLeary]

Good morning Eileen,

Without knowing Barton Howard's regiment, it will be very difficult to find him with the South African (Boer) War as a start point.

You could start with a posting with the information you do have on a forum specific to the period, such as the Victorian Wars Forum.  That forum has boards specific to the Boer War 1899-1902 and another for Researching Individual Soldiers & Sailors.

Howard Barton, as a Quartermaster in South Africa, may have also participated in other campaigns. With his South African service as a starting point, be sure to ask those who read the posts to check whatever medal rolls they may have, someone might find him (or a matching name) on another list that could help narrow your later searches. Also describe the book you know that he is in, some member of that forum may recognize it and have the volume in their personal library.

You can also try working back through the family line, looking for recorded traces of parental next of kin at each stage.  Have you ordered service records from Library and Archives Canada (LAC) for each of those that served in the Canadian Army?

For the Second World War and those who served after 1918, instructions to order a service record are found here.

For the First World War, LAC maintains the Soldiers of the First World War - CEF.  The record for each includes the necessary file reference to order the service record.  Instructions for doing that are found here

Since you are doing family research, I would also suggest that your consider a membership with Ancestry.com. Pull together all of your other resources and then start with Ancestry's 14-day free trial.  You may be able to get everything you want from their resources within that period before having to pay the monthly membership fees.

[eileen]

Thank you so much Mr. O'Leary, this will help me a great deal.  I am trying to find all the good things about my parentage, as it helps to know they tried in some way to make this world a safer place for my grandchildren.  So I will let you know if I find out some new info.  I have my father's service records, and will apply for both my grandfather's, and try for great granddad's when I figure out what army he was in.  My daughter has just informed me, she thinks she has my father's red book about his grandfather, she is starting the basement search.  She just moved so alot still packed but she was very proud of the books and knows she has kept them, for her son.  Thanks for so much help. Eileen

[woody]

Trying to put a photo of Col A.T. Howard, OBE VD 1936-1938
Don't know if it is who you are looking for Eileen.
Bob

[eileen]

THIS IS MY GRANDFATHER

[woody]

Eileen, that photo was in the book called CANADA'S BLACK WATCH the first hundred years
and was written by Paul P.Hutchison. b (1862-1962) While in Depot we being the new recruits
had to purchase this book. As you see I still have mine.
Hope this helps you a little in your quest.
Bob Woodward

[eileen]

Thank you for your information, I am going to go get a copy of that book, there is another where he is mentioned about something he did in the first world war that helped the war effort in a big way.  He was a well decorated soldier, the book I have is all about his own battalion, the 13th.  He is only a sgt. in the book I have.  In 1962 he was photographed with the queen mother on her visit to montreal.  The reading can get a little complicated when you don't know much about military life in the actual field of battle.  I wanted to know about the col's father.  and in time I will find the information.  I have put some feelers out on sites about the boar war and hopefully someone will tell me where great grandpa served and what army he was with.you are all a big help thanks.

[eileen]

I was just looking at the 13th battalion war diaries and this man in the photo, my grandfather, wrote a note on Nov. 11th 1918, about how guarded the men were when the news of the armistice was signed and that the civilians were the first to show signs of joy that their prayers for four weary years were not in vain.  Most of the pages of the war diary has ATH Albert Turner Howard in the margin to show he had read each order or that he had written the words.  He was a Leuitenent ADjucent sorry about my spelling, reading these word and knowing it was my grandfather who wrote them is a different feeling.  There are notes about there trip to get to the ship to come home, crossing the Rhine and many words he would not talk about to his grandchildren.  He played a big role in my freedom and I am so proud to see his initials on all those pages, knowing he was doing his best to keep his men in order and got them where they were supposed to be going.  He was a very very organized man and a stock brocker in civilian life, and I mean very organized, he lost and gained many fortunes in his lifetime, but to see his name on all those pages, is the thing that gave his life meaning, He was always Col A.T. Howard, till he died in 1986 at 94 years of age with parkinson's disease, which he hated, as it made him spastic and he hated needing help.  My father joined the Black WAtch in 1941 at the age of 17, but ended his career an RCR 1st Battalion. He was black watch until the end of WW2. I am having trouble finding out if he was one of the canloans that jumped into ARnhiem.  He wanted so badly to show his father he was a soldier he volunteered for canloan, so he could see action and action he saw. Those war diaries are really amazing to read.  It tells the story of the actual events and pain, he wrote of the rain and the mud and blood and injuries and deaths.  The hard part is reading the lists of the casualties, and deaths, as if they are groceries that need replenishing.  Sometimes though he talks of his pain inside, when he has to write about the losses of the day.  Pro patria Grandpa, you weren't a Royal but you were a hero to me. My father was lighting our fireplace one Christmas when Grandpa was in his 80's and of course Eric howard had no patience and put some gas on the wood in the fireplace and it made a big boom when he lit it, granddad was asleep in his chair by the fireplace and he automatically went into a crouch position on the floor, thinking he was back in WW! or WW2, I thought he was gonna shoot my dad, his son, for scaring him like that.  Grandpa also lived through the FLQ bombings in Quebec, and he said it took him right back to the war years, as he was in his office and the blasts lifted his huge oak desk right off the floor, He said the war never ever leaves you, and any similar noise took you right back to that feeling of duck and cover.  He was a very smart interesting man to talk to, if you really pushed him to talk.  My dad was always doing nutty things like the fireplace thing, the barbeque was another event we all went for cover over.  Why wait when you can just blow the joint up and have a barbeque. These memories make me laugh now, but not when I was 10. Eileen