A MAN who spent five years researching his family tree is desperate to track down some war medals awarded to a distant relative that were sold at auction.
Nutfield resident Michael Francis decided to trace his family roots when he stumbled on a picture of his great grandparents and their children posing outside the family's Holmwood Park Farm Cottage on July 1, 1910.
Thanks to his research, and a chance conversation in a graveyard, he found himself outside the same cottage 100 years after the picture was taken.
But his journey took an unexpected twist in 2010 when he was contacted by an heir hunters company which told him he had been bequeathed some family heirlooms by Charles Stephen, the nephew of Frederick Francis, Michael's great uncle, and the only member of his family he had been unable to track down at that point.
Frederick was one of four of the Holmwood boys who went to serve in the First World War but tragically was the only one not to return after he was killed in France on September 25, 1915, while serving with the Royal West Surrey Regiment.
A heart-wrenching family anecdote tells how his mother Sarah would walk to the end of their country lane every day hoping for his safe return.
As part of the estate Michael received an envelope, which included a death plaque, a letter from King George V awarding Francis a trio of medals, and a handwritten note requesting the medals and plaque be handed down through the family.
But despite a thorough search Michael was unable to find the medals and later found they had been sold, along with the plaque, at an auction in Cornwall, where Charles lived, before the family connection had been made.
He eventually tracked down the Cornwall auction house and even managed to find the online sale of the medals but despite his efforts to track down the buyer has been unable to do so.
Since then he has scoured the web in search of the medals, which had been passed down through three or four generations before being sold, in the hope they might once again find their way to an auction and give him a chance of getting them back.
He said: "It is now two years since this episode, and I have continued to search the websites and the like, where First World War medals are the principle interest, but alas all to no avail.
"This is the final part of the family puzzle. It would be good to have them back in the family. It seems the medals were left in the house and whoever has cleared it after Charles died has put the medals up for sale not knowing I was going to get that letter three or four years later."
If you think you know the whereabouts of the medals, or can help, call 01737 783889.
