Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

On the Town Hall WW1 Roll of Honour the unusual surname "CASGRIFF" appears, rank Private, initial B, regiment The King's (Liverpool) Regt, 20th Battalion.

I have been unable to find this name or anything near it in other sources and assume it was a wrong recording when the Roll was compiled.

Can anyone suggest what might be the correct version? Our detectives usually come up with the answer!
D

Hi daggers,

Could this be your man?

Free BMD: W/Derby Dec 1893 8b 236

Bernard COSGRIFF

Gray

Post script:

Just had a look on the war graves commission.. any good?


B Cosgriff
Private
Ser no: 22655
Date of death: 3/7/1916
age: unknown
Reg: L.pool Kings
Grave/Memorial: I.E 10
Cemetery: Heilly Station Mericourt - L'Abbe

Gray
You have beaten me to it, as I have just found him, with the spelling you have, in the book 'Liverpool Pals', by Graham Maddocks.
Many thanks,
Daggers

Hi daggers,

Glad we have found the correct spelling; Right that we try!

Bless them all.

Gray

Hi Daggers
I think this Casgriff/Cosgriff name is one of the many variations of one of my family branches from Ireland, Cosgrave (Cosgrove even). I certainly have evidence that they are have been recorded at various times as Cosgriff.

Tony

Tony
Thanks for that. The TH Roll sadly has many errors in names, ranks, units, so I do not know what will happen to my findings, but I am trying to eliminate the 'impossibles' by checking some of the curiosities that hit my eye!
D

my great great great great grandfather was called bernard cosgriff and was an irish immigrant to liverpool. his daughter (ellen cosgriff/cosgreef) married jonathan ballard (my grt grt grt grandfather). his grandson was john richard ballard mm who died in the somme 1916. maybe the bernard you are talking about is also an ancestor of mine and related to the bernard cosgriff i mentioned.

David
Welcome to the forum and thanks for the input. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has no family details or address against the entry for Bernard Cosgriff, who died on 3 July 1916, two days after the opening of the Somme offensive. His records are unlikely to have survived, as 2/3 of them all were destroyed in the London blitz in 1940.
The CWGC list four Cosgriffs as WW1 casualties - another in the King's Regiment (possibly a regular soldier) and one Australian, remembered at Fromelles as having died on 19 July 1916, where many bodies have recently been re-interred.
JR Ballard is also listed by CWGC, with MM, as from 10th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, but without details of kin or address. His death was on 16 Aug 1916. His name, without the second initial, is on the Town Hall Roll of Honour, panel 12L.
The Hall of Remembrance can be seen online, though the panels cannot be read, via the www.Liverpool.gov.uk. website, where there is an option to take a virtual tour of the Town Hall.
Richard

There are service papers for bernard Cosgriff on Ancestry.

1901 census RG13 3480 folio 17 page 25

127 possibly Begson Street (very faint) Everton

Bernard Cosgriff 52
Catherine his wife 45
John J son 15
Richard son 10
BERNARD son 7
Margaret daughter 3


The father Bernard appears to show in the 1861 as the son of a Bernard Cosgriff born 1822 in Ireland. the family is at 26 Stanley Street father Bernard mother Ellen and children Elizabeth 15 Ellen 14 Bernard 12 Richard 10 Sara 8 Clara 6 and Jane 4

Hilary
Ed Officer

i have traced my ballard ancestors going back 5 generations all in liverpool, to james ballard born 1817 and his wife mary ann.(married around 1840)
i assume they were an english family who brushed with the irish in marriage a couple of times. i would like to know whether they were originally from england or ireland. i know ellen cosgriff was of irish stock ad she married jonathan ballard. James ballard later married ellen byrnes in 1863 and she was born in cork but she is not a blood relation to me.
intrestingly i have irish on my other side of the family but this is very hard to clarify. at the moment im up to about 15% irish. my liverpool ancestors are: john richard ballard, his father jonathan ballrd, his father jonathan ballard, his father james ballard of court kew street. My grandmother was eleanor ballard but she was brought up in wales and i know that john richard ballard died fighting in the welsh fusiliers. my other three great grandfathers also died in wwi.
I know that many irish names were anglicised but the large number of english surnames possessed by the irish immigrants shocks me more than the numbers arriving in liverpool in the 1800.
i suppose it is evidence that migration is a 2 way street and the english and scootish were successful in colonising ireland north and south. i did read somewhere that in 1801 a quarter of all people in the island of ireland had english or scottish blood. i would love some clarification on the ballard family of liverpool.

According to www.lancashirebmd.org.uk James BALLARD married Mary A NAVILLE at St Philip's Church Liverpool. On the site you can download a form to send for the certificate or you can order it from the GRO the reference for that would be March Quarter 1839 Liverpool Registration District volume 20 page 257.

Having the marriage certificate will enable you to find both parties father's names and go back a further generation.

I wonder if NAVELLE should actually be NEVILLE but no doubt as your research progresses you may find out.


Hilary
Ed Officer

my great great grandfather was jonathan ballard (born around 1870 in liverpool)and he a married an annie.
i found a marriage ref to a jonathan ballard marrying an annie poland in 1890. I know that jonathan's son was john richard ballard.
annie poland was born in 1872 and her father was thomas poland. i think thomas' father was robert poland (irish immigrant to liverpool.)
does anyone know whether my great great grandfather did actually marry annie poland.
does anyone know who john richard ballard married before he died in 1916.
does anyone know about his daughter eleanor ballard (my grandmother)

John Richard Ballard married Mary F Sutcliffe in 1905 at St Silas Liverpool

david goodenough wrote:my great great grandfather was jonathan ballard (born around 1870 in liverpool)and he a married an annie.
i found a marriage ref to a jonathan ballard marrying an annie poland in 1890. I know that jonathan's son was john richard ballard.
annie poland was born in 1872 and her father was thomas poland. i think thomas' father was robert poland (irish immigrant to liverpool.)
does anyone know whether my great great grandfather did actually marry annie poland.
does anyone know who john richard ballard married before he died in 1916.
does anyone know about his daughter eleanor ballard (my grandmother)

You say your great great grandfather was John Ballard born 1870 yet you are asking who John RIchard Ballard married. To be sure that you are on the right line you will need to purchase the marriage certificate for John Richard and Mary F Sutcliffe who married at St Silas Liverpool in 1905.

yes, if you read the original message im asking about both of them and my grandmother.
its an expensive business asking for marriage certs.
im sure theres someone out there who knows about the ballards.
any info about where in ireland bernard cosgriff was from would be great.
I think he was born in ireland in 1822.
also where robert poland was from in ireland.

Do you reside in the Merseyside area. If so you could visit Liverpool Record Office when it reopens and view the marriage free of charge.

My Grandad's surname wasn't particularly Irish sounding. I found that in fact the surname Holland is very common in Ireland especially in County Cork where my Hollands originated. There's two explanations for these non-Irish sounding surnames. Firstly they are the result of settlement by English, Welsh, Scottish, Norman French and European people from the 1100s onwards after they were invited over to help restore the leadership of one of the Irish Kings. Secondly some Irish surnames were anglicised for example it's believed that some Houlihans became Hollands.

Blue

david goodenough wrote: its an expensive business asking for marriage certs.

It's unlikely that posting on a genealogy forum you would just "come across" people who knew your ancestors, many of us have posted our surnames on quite a number of sites without that sort of success.

Unfortunately our hobby is not a cheap one, however, we have all learned that step by step is the way to do it, without the correct documentation - which generally means birth certificate to confirm parents, followed by marriage certificate to confirm ages, fathers and other details, it is so easy to jump to conclusions and follow an incorrect line of research.

As others have said, the cheaper method is certainly, having taken note of where marriages took place, and where the family lived at the time of childrens births, to spend some of your free time at the Liverpool Record Office when it is again available, and obtain marriage and baptism certificates for the cost of a photocopy.

If what you say is true (and i believe that this is a very negative view), then you must be calling into question the purpose/function of the forum. In any case, the resolution of 'daggers' enquiry about bernard cosgriff proves to the contrary. Moreover, as i live on the south coast i cannot simply drop in to the liverpool records office and so far this forum has proved to be very valuable as far as i am concerned. So i will keep plugging away

John Richard Ballard that married Florence Mary Sutcliffe at St Silas in 1905 was my great uncle. He was born 4 th July 1882 and christening was at St Peters 31st July 1882. His younger brother Henry Thomas was my mums dad.
JRBs son John (Jack) William married my dads sister Florence.
Sort out that DNA.