How I Found C.K. Shepherd’s Son
My attempts to research and discover any archival details (original manuscript, photos, etc.) from C.K. Shepherd’s 1922 book,
Across America by Motor-Cycle, were stymied for years because I could not discover his full name. Ultimately, I resorted to a “brute force” approach. I logged into the WWI military records section of
The National Archives in the UK and then reviewed the records of each and every person with the last name “Shepherd” (and even “Shepard”), trying to identify individuals with facts in common with C.K. about which I already believed to be true. It took a while, but in May 2017, I found conclusive records showing that C.K.’s full name at birth was Charles Kenilworth Shepherd. This discovery was
the turning point, because I now had a complete name to search for. Part of my work now focused on learning what I could of whatever became of C.K. after he published his book.
