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Message 1.Β
Posted by Bobby 1st (U14325638) on Thursday, 16th June 2011
My son has just retrurned from a history trip to the battlefields and memorials of France and Belgium. This has awakened a real interst in him for this period in history especially as he was able o find the name of one of our ancestors on the Menin Gate memorial. Can anyone tell me how we can find out more about how our ancestors died but also about the service histories of those who survived. We have a few relatives, one served in the merchant navy and one served with an Irish regiment who survived the war, also two who died but we would like to find out more about thier service records.
Thanks
Val & Matthew. -
Message 2
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Thursday, 16th June 2011
How about this one:
or this:
finding medal cards:
and:
and for WW1 and WW2 deaths, *the* essential site:
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Message 3
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Thursday, 16th June 2011
If you want to know about the fate of particular ancestors, post a message giving their details on the Family History board.
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Message 4
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Thursday, 16th June 2011
The service records for the British Army are not complete but they are available (up to 1920 for non-officers) on ancestry for a fee, but free at The National Archives (TNA), Kew. After 1920 they are still held by the Ministry of Defence in Glasgow. The records of officers are held at TNA who also have a number of the War Diaires online and the rest may need to be seen at TNA as original documents. The diairies will tell you what the regiment was doing and where they were at the time. TNA also have online the naval records for the period.
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Message 5
Posted by raundsgirl (U2992430) on Thursday, 16th June 2011
Unfortunately a lot of WW1 Army records were destroyed during the Blitz, although some survived.
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Message 6
Posted by Patrick Wallace (U196685) on Friday, 17th June 2011
If it is possible to identify the units with which any given person served, the National Archives will hold war diaries, which record where the unit was and what is was doing. But this may be no more than bare outline information, with very little information about individuals. For WW1, "other ranks" are rarely mentioned, and even as casualties tend to be recorded only as statistics rather than by name. I found a war diary for my father's unit in WW2, in which the fate of every man in the collapse of the Crete campaign is recorded by name (even though the officer who compiled it must have had to do it from memory after escaping to Egypt); but for his older brother, who was captured by the Turks in Mesopotamia, the entry for that day just says "Missing: OR -1".
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Message 7
Posted by rbnbird (U14885089) on Friday, 17th June 2011
I know how emotive attending the ceremony at the Menin Gate can be - I was less than two weeks ago on a night when Six Schools laid wreaths!!! Each name is that of one who at the time the Menin Gate was built was recorded as being 'missing in action' near Ypres.
Though many of the WW1 soldiers service records were lost due to bombing in WW2 the Medal Roll Index still exists. This gives details of the medals awarded to each soldier and his basic unit look these up at www.nationalarchives.documents online. There is a fee to download and copy them.
You don't say where you are but your local Family History Society may have some information or know where you can find it.
Has your Public Library got free access to Ancestry.com and or possible pay as you view access to the 1911 or earier census's, if so this will enable you to get some background information on the person you are looking for and on his family.
Finally, the various Family History magazines that are published each month often have pages on how to trace people and some offer a free service where you can ask for help looking for a particular individual or event.
Hope this is of help to you.
rb211. -
Message 8
Posted by MB (U177470) on Sunday, 19th June 2011
If you know anyone interested in family history then the two main sites, Ancestry and FindMyPast both have some WWI records on site though just Ancestry have the full service records.
As has been pointed on the the CWGC site has a lot of information but you can search the database better through this website, you can search by keywords and often find people from the address of their next of kin. I have found quite a few local ones who are not on war memorials.
The War Grave Photographic Project have photographs of a large proportion of war graves, I am sure many have not been seen by the family of the serviceperson.
Local papers from the period often have regular articles on local army units and also reports on those killed.
If you look up WWI casualties in local graveyards then don't forget that many do not have CWGC headstones so can be more difficult to find - the picture on the WGPP site might help. There are also many family memorials which just commemorate someone buried elsewhere or no known grave.
There are similar projects for the main Commonwealth countries because there were casualties from them - some serving in British units.
There are less known things like lots of Canadian and Newfoundland foresters who came over in both WWI and WWII to work in the UK forests, some of whom are buried here.
MB -
Message 9
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Sunday, 19th June 2011
i would like to point out that neither ancestry nor find my past have the military records of British Army officers and they are only available as original paper files at The National Archives., Kew
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Message 10
Posted by MB (U177470) on Sunday, 19th June 2011
Though officers will I think appear in the medal rolls which can be useful if the name is not too common. I think they are also in the Soldiers Who Died In The Great War files.
More files on the RN and RM are starting to appear as well.
If you know the regiment then always worth trying the regimental museum / archive as some hold additional records that can be useful. They are also often much more convenient to get to than The National Archive.
MB
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