"My name is Cathy Sedgwick. I am a 54 year old
stay at home housewife with 2 adult sons – aged 23 and nearly 20 and I live
in Sydney, Australia. I started
researching my Family tree on my father’s side almost 10 years ago as my
parents had divorced when I was around 12 years old and I knew very little
about my father’s side of the family – except for his brothers and sisters
and my grandmother.
Then I moved on to my husband’s side to research.
He was born in England and moved to Australia when he was 7 years old. After
researching the Sedgwick name back to 1750’s I then moved on to my
mother-in-law’s side of the family tree. Her grandfather lived in Dinton,
Wiltshire around 1920 until his death in mid 1960’s. He was Chauffeur and right
hand man to Bertram Philipps, who bought Dinton House which was later renamed ‘Philipps
House’.
While researching the parish of Dinton, I
came across a family history website based on the county of Wiltshire, where
you “adopt” a village and therefore the page on the website. So I volunteered
to take on the Dinton page. As there is
very little information as in Census etc. for the time period between
1920-1960, I learnt a lot about the village itself by doing research – through
newspaper articles, persons of interest, listed buildings, names on the War
Memorial and photos.
While researching Dinton, I came across the
nearby village of Compton Chamberlayne which had 28 Australian Soldiers
buried there. Being an Australian I felt a need to explore this and as the tiny
parish had no-one looking after it on the website – I took that on. Thankfully, a lovely man by the name of
Andrew Stacey (who I had contacted out of the blue to ask permission to use his
photos of Dinton) went to Compton Chamberlayne on one of his visits to the area
and took photos of all the graves in the cemetery. I then research all the War
Graves and completed 5-7 page biographies on each of the Australian Soldiers.
I then discovered that another village –
Codford had 31 Australian Soldiers and 66 New Zealand soldiers buried in one of
their cemeteries. I emailed around and a lovely lady by the name of Romy Wyeth
– an author of several books on Codford - went & photographed all the War
Graves for me. So I completed biographies on all those.
I then discovered that Durrington had 141
Australian Soldiers so took that on as well as Baverstock – 29 Australian
Soldiers - and then Sutton Veny which has 141 Australian soldiers and 2
Australian nurses. I have completed biographies for all 169 War Graves in
Sutton Veny which will soon be available on the Sutton Veny village website. http://www.suttonveny.co.uk/
I am no longer volunteering on the family
history website – due to issues with the Administrator. I did have 13 parishes
that I was looking after and completed biographies for the names on the War
Memorials in the villages I looked after.
I am almost finished researching all 227
War Graves in Durrington, Wiltshire as a favour to Dave Healing from Durrington
who helped me out many times with the Durrington page. I hope that the biographies
will be available on the Durrington Council website – but have had some
interest from Amesbury History Museum.
In between completing the Durrington War
Graves - I am working my way through the Australian soldiers who died in WW1
and are buried in England. There are almost 2,500. My work is now being
accepted on the Australian website – WW1 Australian Soldiers & Nurses who
Rest In The United Kingdom: http://ww1austburialsuk.weebly.com/
