The war hero and the prisoner.

Family history: a thread

@hugorifkind’s brilliant show on @TimesRadio is sponsored by @AncestryUK, so they took a look at my family tree.

The genealogist Simon Pearce is a genius.

Last week we looked at the war record of my great-grandfather, Edward John Mildon, serving in Gallipoli, Palestine, Balkans and the Somme, for which he received medals for gallantry from Britain and France.

Today we do the other side of genealogy...

Edward Mildon was my great-great-grandfather.
Here he is in the 1851 census

And then here he is in Exeter court records in 1864: sheepstealing

Here is a local newspaper report about it. He basically said he’d bought the sheep from a man, he then that man had died.

The jury didn’t believe him. He got 12months in prison with hard labour.
For one sheep.