It is interesting when the research of two historians leads them to the same man. A case in point is Cecil Yard, a World War One soldier from Barbados.
Almost a decade ago, Bill Hern set himself the task of visiting the Commonwealth War Graves of all the First World War soldiers buried on Barbados. It involved more than one visit to the island – tough work, but someone had to do it! The results of his toil in the sun, fuelled by the occasional rum punch or Banks beer, no doubt, can be found on the pages of this site. One man he researched was Cecil Yard who died on the island on 13th November 1918. Bill’s research into the story of Cecil Yard can be found here:
https://www.historycalroots.com/cecil-yard-royal-engineers-pioneer-corps-199705/
John Ellis found the story of Cecil Yard on the internet while trawling through digitised newspaper reports on Findmypast. No sunny trips to the Caribbean for him (although at times the UK weather in 2026 while John was doing his research was remarkably akin to Barbados)! The results of John’s research can be seen here:
By piecing these two articles together we get a more rounded understanding of Cecil’s life. No doubt there is more to find. Sometimes we are contacted by descendents of people we feature, it would be fascinating to find out more about the life of Cecil Yard.