30 Days of Remembrance- Day 4- Arthur Duquette

In memory of
Private
Arthur Duquette
who died on November 1, 1917

Military Service:

Service Number: 1007104

Age: 22

Force: Army

Unit: Canadian Railway Troops

Division: 6th Bn.

Additional Information:

Date and Place of Birth: May 30, 1896

Son of Joseph and Emelie Duquette, of Mattawa, Ontario.

Cemetery: POTIJZE BURIAL GROUND CEMETERY, Belgium

Grave Reference: SS. 1.

Commemorated on Page 232 of the First World War Book of Remembrance.

My first look at for Arthur Duquette on Ancestry gave me a matching person who looked promising. 

Matching Person (from family trees)

Arthur Aimé Duquette

• Birth:  30 Mar 1895 - Canada
• Death:  1 Nov 1917 - Belgium
• Parents:  Joseph Toussaint Duquette, Emilie "Amelia" Céléstine Germain

The date and place of death aligned as well as the names of his parents, but the birth dates were different. So I went back to Soldiers of the First World War to find attestation papers for Arthur Duquette, and there were 4 of them listed. Only two of them had a date of birth recorded, one of which matched the May 5, 1895 date. I crosschecked the military service numbers and they also matched.

The dob on these papers clearly says May, not March 5, but everything else coincides with the Ancestry Arthur:

His birthplace of Calvin township, Ontario, near Mattawa.

His parents names, Joseph Toussaint Duquette and Emilie Céléstine Germain

His date and place of death  Nov 1, 1917 in  Belgium.

From the family tree I was able to look at Arthur's birth registration which shows a dob of March 5 1895, and also his baptism record from April 1 1895 which confirms it. 

So it appears the error is in the military documents!

Arthur Aimé Duquette was one of 12 children, all but two of which were alive in 1917 when Arthur joined the Canadian Forces. However, according to the Ancestry tree, his father Joseph had died the previous year. Arthur was 21, single and living in North Bay when he signed up on Jan 6. Not quite ten months later, he was killed in action in Belgium