Anybody got any information about these photos?

Question

I have these photos of which I'm lead to beleive that in one or both of them is a family member.

Can anyone tell me anything about the regiment, where and when they are. I'm guessing India 1920's thats about all I know.

Has for the chap on is own I think I can make out WW1 medals but thats all I know.

Please help me to fit these two pieces of jigsaw into my family tree.

Oh yes this isn't some ploy to get you onto the web site, its just the eAsiest way I knew to get large photo links onto Yahoo answers.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions, I will also put a comments/ suggestion box next to the photos incase you remeber something at a later date.

http://tarsia.moonfruit.com/#/familyhistory/4529643512

Answer 1

According to this website (http://www.harappa.com/post4/frontier0.h... Mela Ram was a Peshawar-based photographer who took a lot of photos in the 1920s and 1930s in the North West Frontier of the Indian Raj (now Pakistan).  All the troops are wearing shorts so they are definately in a hot tropical country so I guess the North Western Frontier of India in the 1920s or 1930s is about as close as you'll get.  Proper military historians should be able to help you identify the regiment.  It may be worth trying to contact the regimental museum of the Royal Artillary if that's who you think they were and see if an archivist can help you, or else try an archivist at somehwere like the Imperial War Museum and see if they can suggest someone who can decipher the uniforms and cap badges, etc.

The second guy I don't know about.  They look like a standard arrangement of WW1 military medals on his chest including the 1914/15 star, but the uniform I have no idea.  My first thought was a railway uniform, but he could easily be a bus driver or conductor or even possibly a driver or chauffer.  Can't really help you on that one I'm afraid.

If you know his name then it might be worth going to the National Archives website and downloading his medal card for £3.50 so you can get a regiment and service number.  Then perhaps you can see if his WW1 service record was one of the lucky few that have survived.

Answer 2

With photos you have to analyse the clues.

Ok my first thoughts were those soldiers are wearing shorts therefore they are in a hot country.

My second thought was search the "photographers name" as a place..it seems to relate to India.

http://www.king-emperor.com/Introduction... proves the forces were out there. So far so good I agree with you.

If your ancestor bore the name of your direct line or you think you know it, you can check the medal rolls list.

Likewise their death if they died during service.

The second guy is probably again late 1920's early 1930's

The medals look like "pip squeak and wilfred" the normal service medals

.http://www.fylde.demon.co.uk/pip.htm

His coat is heavy wool or worsted and my initial feeling was he could be a chaffeur, however I believe it was common to wear jodphers and riding boots to drive. This maynot be necessarily true of the less upper class families and he is posed in front of a large building.

Another option is of course the railway.