Named Crimea Medal - French?

[RoyalOak]

Greetings,

 

This is my first post on this forum. My usual field of collection is coins, but when I encountered this interesting and beautiful piece of history at a flea market a few months ago, I could not give it a pass.

 

The Crimea Medal appears to be part of the official British issue, first variation with the designers’ signatures on both sides.

 

The medal seems to have been through a lot, it has had its suspender removed and has been holed at some point in its history.

 

Its rim is somewhat crudely impressed with “ SERRE : A : N . “, which I interpret as a surname and two initials of the given name. Unfortunately, it does not appear to give any information about the service number or unit the recipient served in.

 

I have searched on Ancestry and looked through a few of the digitized medal rolls on the National Archives’ website as well, but there are no exact matches for someone named Serre in the British Crimea Medal Rolls. There are some individuals called “Serey” or “Sear” tough.

 

The surname Serre appears to be of French origin (with a few name bearers in surrounding countries including England) so there is a good chance that this medal has been awarded to a French participant in the campaign.

 

Concerning French recipients, I have not been able to find good records online. There appears to have been a Colonel de la Serre commanding the 10e Régiment de Ligne of the French Army in the conflict, but I think it would not be convincing to attribute this medal to him.

 

 

Now I have got a number of questions:

• Are the Ancestry records (that are accessible free of charge) complete, do they reflect (close to) all of the recipients in the surviving British medal rolls?
• Are there other records of the Crimea Medal recipients besides Ancestry (and its Forces War Records) and The National Archives?
• Do you have any thoughts on the style of the impression and its omission of the unit?
• Could someone with the surname Serre potentially have been recorded with another, similar sounding name (e.g. “Seary” or “Sear”) upon his entry into the British Army?
• Are there publicly available records of the French recipients of the British Crimea medal?

 

 

Please excuse the bad quality of the photos of the rim, I have not yet mastered the art of photographing it properly.

 

 

I would really appreciate any help or advice on how to move forward my research.

Thank you very much in advance.

 

 

Regards 

 

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Edited 18 hours ago by RoyalOak