There is a Flintshire Roll of Honour card for Thomas in the County Record office at Hawarden. It gives the regimental details above but also gives his address as Church Row Pontblyddyn. The card says that he was declared ‘missing in Gaza’ on March 26th 1917 so presumably someone in the military decided that was his death date. The card was signed by Henry Griffiths 16th September 1919

He was born in 1896 in Hope in Flintshire. The 1901 census places him and his family in New Road Bannel, Hawarden. The household consisted of John Griffiths Head, a widower and a self employed  farmer aged 67. Henry Griffiths, a married son aged 28 a coal hewer, filler. Elizabeth Griffiths presumably the wife of Henry who was 29 and who hailed from Gresford in Denbighshire.  The three children of Henry and Elizabeth –Thomas John 5, Sarah Elizabeth 4 and William Henry 1

We have found it difficult to find much trace of Thomas John Griffiths after that. We have found the family on the 1911 census. By then they were living in 2 Church Row, Pontblyddyn, Mold. The head of the household was still John Griffiths who was 77 years old. Henry was 38 and still hewing coal, Elizabeth Ann, his wife was 39 and she had given birth to 7 children in total all of whom were still alive. Six of them were at home Sarah Elizabeth 14, William Henry 11, Jane 9, Hugh 7, Francis Ethel 4 and Fred  2. Thomas John would have been 15 but he wasn’t at home and we cannot so far trace him.

We know that he enlisted in Queensferry (UK Soldiers who died in the Great War 1914 – 1919 acessible on www.ancestry .co.uk)