Military Chat

Hi everyone
My sister owns a Dead Mans Penny that she bought with her husband on a market in Manchester in the 1960s
We have tried to find its rightful family owners a few different times over the years, has anyone got any helpful ideas please?

thank you

alison

What research have you done into the man's family?

Unfortunately, as the "pennies" don't state ranks, units, or ages, if your man had a commonn name, it will be pretty much impossible to trace his family.

Yes ArgyllGran

We've been looking for a long time & we think it's virtually impossible

the man's name was John Keegan.

These are the only John Keegan's (without any middle names or initials) who died during WW1, per the CWGC site:



JOHN KEEGAN
Private
Service Number: 201398
1st/5th Bn.
Manchester Regiment
United Kingdom
Died 26 October 1917
29 years old
ZUYDCOOTE MILITARY CEMETERY
II. A. 32.
France


JOHN KEEGAN
Private
Service Number: 24/1341
24th (Tyneside Irish) Bn.
Northumberland Fusiliers
United Kingdom
Died 01 July 1916
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 10 B 11 B and 12 B.
France


JOHN KEEGAN
Private
Service Number: 9801
2nd Bn.
Irish Guards
United Kingdom
Died 13 April 1918
PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL
Panel 1.
Belgium


JOHN KEEGAN
Private
Service Number: 20832
6th Bn.
York and Lancaster Regiment
United Kingdom
Died 14 June 1917
24 years old
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 36 and 55.
Belgium


However, there are also seven J Keegans.

But I see these have been posted already:

https://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/military_chat/thread/1339233

Were you able to track down any of those men's families?

Yes, thank you , this is the problem as there is so many of them

What headway did you make in trying to trace the families?

Or course, depending on when the Penny left the relevant Keegan family, it's possible that none of the surviving family members would know if their family had been awarded one or not.

dead ends in 2014 we didn't get anywhere but it's probably worth a try to go over it all again, thanks for your help

Unfortunately, I think it's a pointless exercise.
Even if you were to trace those men's descendants, there's no way of knowing which family (if any) the penny belongs to, as it only has the name on it, and no other identifying info.

Plaques were awarded until the 1930's, so it may be that none of the men above are relevant to your "penny".
Interesting info here about dating a plaque, and the difficulties of identification, variations of names, inclusion (or not) of middle names, etc:

http://www.jackclegg.com/Plaque-history.htm

It also says-
"Very little is known about the processes involved in the application, administration & issue of Memorial Plaques. There appears to be no information available in Public Records, but this is thought to be due to the fact that the Ministry of Pensions were the main controlling force of plaque issue. The MoP do not release their records to the public domain & we may therefore never know the answer to some of the most basic questions"

The only hope would be if you were able to find mention of it among the man's army service record papers (see info in the link above) - but 70% of WW1 army records are no longer in existence.