Many months ago, I wrote up "The Marigold" - a blogpost where I solved the mystery of why my great-great-grandmother Eliza Louisa Hibbert had no birth certificate. I posed an unanswered question at the end of it: as well as my wondering if she ever knew her parents were actually her grandparents, I also wondered what became of her half-brother, Francis.
It seems I have now solved that mystery. Francis Louis Townsend Moyes was the sole beneficiary in his father's will when Robert Gibson Moyes passed away in 1911. Given his (and Eliza's) mother Sarah Avis had passed away in 1890, this technically made him an orphan at the age of 26.
Frank, like Eliza, was born under rather "interesting" circumstances. For starters, though he was the son of Robert, he was born in 1885 when his mother Sarah was still technically married to her second husband, William Townsend, which is how he initially had Townsend in his name. Sarah married Robert when William died in 1890, yet sadly, only lived for another couple of months. Robert, who had the exceptionally cool occupation of being a "billiard maker", outlived her by two decades, never remarried, nor had any other children, and they are interred together in Melbourne General Cemetery. Sarah appears to have led a short, and rather rough, life, but it's clear that at the end, she found herself a devoted companion.
Try as I might though, apart from finding Robert's will and therefore knowing that he outlived his father, my trail for Francis ran cold. No marriage or death certificates could be found on the system, regardless of whether I searched under Moyes or Townsend. It wasn't until Ancestry notified me that they had a new "hint" available for Francis that I solved it all.
My family has a tendency to use nicknames or familiar names, or even alias, rather than a person's actual name. Therefore obviously Francis became "Frank", and that was what he was known as. It was also what he officially seemed to use, because the hint ancestry sent me were his World War I service papers.
Frank Moyes joined the allied forces in 1915, when he was a 30 year old man. From there, he served in the 9th, and then the 59th Battalion. Frank was critically injured in the Battle of Amiens in 1918 and sadly succumbed to his injuries a couple of days later. I therefore could not find a death certificate in Victoria because Frank is buried over in the Vignacourt cemetery, his service number and rank of Private listed on his headstone.
Frank never married, nor had any children. His military service papers, however, also answered another couple of questions for me.
Sadly, when Frank died, I do not believe that he knew he had a living older half-sister. He had no next-of-kin listed on his records, both parents were dead, and correspondence from a Mrs Annie Pearce to the Australian Army indicates that he was a friend of hers who had been lodging at her place when he enlisted. Annie was an older woman - I believe a widow - and it took her several letters to the military in order to gain his personal effects so he was remembered. To do this, Annie Pearce also had to state that Frank had no next-of-kin, and the military then had to establish this as fact. It appears they did establish it because the final piece of correspondence to Annie Pearce from the Army indicates that she received his effects, and that she had to ensure they had not been tampered with in their journey to her.
Annie Pearce herself died only a couple of years later, and sadly, this most likely means that Frank's treasures, memories, and medals are lost to time. It means something else too though: had it been known Frank had a living older half-sister, then these goods would have instead gone to Eliza Louisa Hibbert McVeigh, as Frank had no living parents, and his other two half-siblings had passed away in infancy. It is therefore my belief that he never knew the truth.
This doesn't cancel out the fact that maybe Eliza did know the truth. But she never herself entered into correspondence with the army for his effects. This story of a WW1 family member soldier dying on the field has also not been passed down the generations. The expert in my family on military service is my uncle - a Vietnam Veteran who has been active in the RSL for decades - and this story was news to him. I think, therefore, the most logical conclusion becomes that Eliza did believe she was his aunty rather than his sister - her upbringing ensured that. Had her busy-body great-great-granddaughter not started turning over some rocks over a hundred years later, all this probably would have remained unknown.
My uncle is looking into pursuing this with the RSL, so perhaps one day Frank's medals will return to his living next-of-kin. Perhaps they won't though, and therefore, if I ever go to France, I will make sure I take the time to sit by his graveside, and let him know that his great-great-grandniece has finally found him. Until then, rest peacefully, Private Moyes.
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