My Great Nurse "Worker" Hunt

[rlaughton]

For some time I have been working on a project to find if there is a positive link between Civilian Worker "Mary Paterson" who some thought came from my home town of Milton Ontario Canada and Civilian Worker "Mary McLachlan Blaikley" from Gartcosh Scotland. A few weeks ago an official challenge was put before me and so I had to finally consolidate all my material and make my formal submission.

For those that have an interest in the errors of war records (and yes there are Canadian, British and Australian links) then you might like to take a look at the case. I am most interested in anyone that has any new information or that can find a crack in my case as I have put it forward.

By way of introduction to this case, I have been working on putting together the history of all the soldiers on my home town cenotaph. I made a deal with the local Historical Society that I would make them a nice little web site for all their projects, if they let me put my Milton Soldiers on that site. They agreed and so now all my "Paper Soldiers" (as my wife calls them) are located here:

Milton's Great War Soldiers

Anyone interested in the Milton Historical Society can go backward from that page. For the Great War historians, you can go forward from here to the next page which lists all the soldiers and from there to any one of them on the cenotaph. I wanted to go beyond the basic links to the Attestation Papers, CWGC Certificate and other such records so that I could also tell the local students and researchers "where and how" this soldier met his or her final fate. I did that using their full service records (available in Canada but not on-line as it is for the lucky sods in Australia) and the war diaries that are also on-line. I am also now still mapping all of them so that their grave stone is shown of Google Earth - another project to eat up 2008. For those interested in that side project you want to check it out here - as it has now been upgraded to "History Illustrated - Moderated":

Milton Soldiers on Google Earth

But that is a side story, so carry on here and go back there later.

Now back to Mary, shown on the list as Mary Paterson. Apparently the daughter of a Private John Paterson and his wife of Milton, Ontario - or so the story is told. I think not - as the records suggest Mary was the illegitimate child of one Elizabeth Blaikley of Gartcosh Scotland. Whether John is the father or even if his wife in Milton is the mother, has not yet been proven. All I know for sure is that there was no Mary Paterson!

Here is the report that I prepared in order to have her name removed from our cenotaph, which as you can imagine has caused quite a stir!

Mary Paterson or Blaikley Report

There is a version (but a 20 MB file) with better quality attachments for those that want to see more - or I can link just those attachments.

I am a scientist by trade and so I am a firm believer that any good research has been vetted by ones peers. As such, I welcome any of you to "Fire Away". Also, any new or additional information is most welcome!

This puzzle I do truly hope to solve one day.

Richard

[Antipodean Andy]

Well, my mind's in a whirl digesting all of that! Are there any Patersons still living in Milton?

Good research and supporting material, mate. What would Mr Paterson have been doing in Scotland?

[rlaughton]

Originally Posted by Andy in West Oz

Well, my mind's in a whirl digesting all of that! Are there any Patersons still living in Milton?

Good research and supporting material, mate. What would Mr Paterson have been doing in Scotland?

1. The Private John Paterson family moved out of Milton in July of 1921 and there are no Paterson's of any form around that have any knowledge of the events that I am tracing. The Historical Society Archivist checked all those routes.

2. John Paterson was from the Gartcosh area of Scotland so he might have been "poking about" prior to the war, in one way or another. My suspicion, but I have no facts, is that he may have been the father of the illegitimate daughter Mary and so he took off in great haste to Canada, either with Elizabeth in tow or following shortly. Mary was thus raised by the grandfather as there was no father, or mother and father had just beat it off to Canada.

You will note that John Paterson was off age to have a daughter of that age. It all comes down to the fact that the letters from the QMAAC refer to either "Mary" or the "daughter" and never to "Mary Paterson". I do believe that Elizabeth was the mother and was with John in Milton but Mary never was in Canada and was certainly never adopted by John.

I should have mentioned that in the past few days we have received confirmation that Mary Blaikley is commemorated on the Gartcosh War Memorial, so she is not left without proper acknowledgment of her deeds.

[Antipodean Andy]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Richard.

[spidge]

I hope he never has a big hammer to go with it.

We will have to call Richard the Sherlock of Milton.

Makes my trying to find Aussies in the RAF/RFC/RFC fade into insignificance, although I just finished mine last night. (Found 286)