This article is brought to you by In the
footsteps BATTLEFIELD TOURS
At In the footsteps BATTLEFIELD TOURS we occasionally
receive enquiries about how to trace the records of
British soldiers who served in the 1814-18 Great War. We
do our best to help when such a request is made, but our
resources are limited and we are conscious that our best
is often very slow and not always that conclusive. To
help those wishing to research records of British
Soldiers who served in the 1914-18 Great War we thought
that it would be useful if we put together some notes on
the basics of how to research this information.
During the Great War of 1914-1918 Britain's Regular Army
was tiny by European standards and was quickly
supplemented initially by Reservists and the
Territorials. Kitchener's Army of volunteers were
rapidly trained and sent to the front and by 1916 it was
necessary to introduce Conscription to make up numbers.
The casualty lists continued to grow at an alarming rate
largely because of the very nature of trench warfare.
The modern military innovations and communications that
we know today simply did not exist and the 1914-18 Great
War had developed into one of attrition. As a
consequence, the British Army sustained massive fatal
casualties averaging around 450 officers and men per
day.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)
The first place to begin your search is the Commonwealth
War Graves Commission (CWGC). They have the most
complete record of soldiers (and others) that died in
the 1914-18 Great War. This record is available on-line
in their ‘Debt of Honour Register’ at
http://www.cwgc.org/.
The information contained in the Debt of Honour Register
includes the location of the soldier’s grave (or his
commemoration, if he has no known grave). It will
usually give details of his service number, rank, unit,
date of death (if known) and place of burial or
commemoration. Other information may be available, but
this is dependent on material supplied (or not supplied)
by relatives during and after the war. It should also be
noted that whilst the CWGC make every effort the
Register is not entirely free of errors.
The 1921 Compilation – Soldiers Died in the Great War
1914-19
An excellent resource for locating those who died in the
war is Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19.
Originally published in 1921 the compilations consist of
80 volumes for the soldiers with a separate volume for
officers. Each volume deals with individual Regiment or
Corps, and lists those who died, giving dates,
locations, army number. It is not 100% accurate, but an
excellent record that was based on regimental records.
These volumes give information that the CWGC does not
for example, place of birth, place of residence, place
of enlistment and any former regiment being the most
common.
A full set of the Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19
is available for the general public to reference in the
Birmingham Central Library. Other Central and/or
Reference Libraries may also hold copies, but check
before going as they often only have the volume relating
to the local regiment.
This work can also be obtained from the Imperial War
Museum as a searchable CD-ROM and is also available
from: http://www.naval-military-press.com/. The CD-ROM
has the advantage that the casualties can be searched
and sorted, which is a great benefit if you are
researching a unit or what happened to a group of
friends. Inevitably it does contain some transcription
errors - but then again the originals have errors too.
Overall, this is an excellent though very expensive
resource. Many branches of the Western Front Association
have a copy, as do some libraries - including the one at
the National Archives.
Genealogy Websites
Military-Genealogy.com the Naval & Military Press’
website for military historians and family history
researchers has computerised these records, along with
similar records relating to the Second World War, and
offer a pay-per-view service to search them. These works
are also available as a searchable CD-ROM, published by
the Naval & Military Press. For further details visit:
http://www.naval-military-press.com/.
Another pay-per-view service is provided by
findmypast.com that has made it possible to search for
soldiers who died in the 1914-18 Great War on-line. It
is also possible to access the registers of war deaths
via their website http://www.findmypast.com/HomeServlet.
In addition to their pay-per-view service they operate a
voucher system whereby vouchers can be purchased from UK
stockists or mail order, see their website for details.
Rolls of Honour
Many businesses, organisations, schools and towns
created Rolls of Honour after the war. Many of these are
now available on-line and can be accessed by searching
Google then clicking on the appropriate search result.
In addition to these dedicated Rolls of Honour sites is
a particularly good website
http://www.roll-of-honour.com/ that is striving to list
details of the various War Memorials in the UK. This
also has a useful search facility that will interrogate
the records they have in their databases.
Soldiers Personal Files
All British soldiers who served in the 1914-18 Great War
had a personal file. Around half of these personal files
were destroyed in the first German air-raid on London in
the Second World War on the night of 7th/8th September
1940. The records that survived the Second World War
were released to the UK National Archives: The Public
Record Office at Kew in November 1996. Their website can
be found at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/. The
original documents are now so fragile that only
microfilm is available for inspection and whether an
individual soldier’s file has survived is entirely
random.
Officers’ files had a higher survival rate and about
216,000 were released to the National Archives in
February 1998. The criteria for release were that the
officer had served in the British Army between 1914 and
1920 and that he had left the Army before 31st March
1922. It is often possible to locate an officer’s file
on line, by typing the surname into the National
Archives Catalogue accompanied by a record class number.
Officers’ files are mostly contained in record series WO
339 or WO 374 (especially Territorial Officers).
The Medal Index and Medal Rolls
Besides a soldier’s (or officer’s) personal file the
other major source of information is the Medal Card
Index, also in the National Archives. This is the most
complete listing of British service personnel in the
First World War. The National Archives has now completed
the digitizing of the Medal Index. The on-line version
is available at
http://www.documentson-line.nationalarchives.gov.uk/default.asp
Most soldiers who served with the British Army in the
1914-18 Great War qualified for campaign medals,
normally the 1914 (or 1914-15) Star, the British War
Medal and the Victory Medal. The Army Medals Office
recorded soldiers’ medal entitlement in lists known as
rolls. The Index Card available on line provides the
reference to where the soldier is listed on the Rolls,
which are organised by regiment or corps. The
information found on the Medal Card will include the
soldier’s name, rank and serial number, his regiment or
corps, sometimes his unit (e.g. battalion or Field
Company RE), his date of death (if he died during the
war), the campaign medals he was awarded and the
reference numbers that allow the soldier to be traced on
the Medal Rolls, which are not available on line.
It is important to check the actual Medal Rolls because
they can give extra vital information about a soldier,
such as his battalion, that allows further research to
be undertaken. This is particularly true of soldiers who
served in the cavalry, yeomanry and infantry, but much
less so for the larger corps, such as the Royal
Artillery, Royal Engineers and Army Service Corps.
Unit War Diaries
Once a soldier’s unit has been identified it is possible
to find out more about it. All units from battalion
level (and the battalion’s equivalent in other corps,
such as a Field Artillery Brigade) upwards were required
to keep War Diaries on active service. These diaries are
preserved in the National Archives: The Public Record
Office, Kew, in record series WO 95. War Diaries rarely
mention ordinary soldiers, but they do provide a
detailed account of the unit’s movements and activities.
Regimental Histories
Nearly all infantry regiments and battalions have
published histories. These can usually be purchased
through that Regiment’s PRI or through most reputable
bookshops. On-line bookshops such as Amazon will also
have these available.
We hope that the information contained within this
article has been of assistance and will help you trace
the records of the soldier you are interested in. If you
feel that we can be of assistance please email us at
inthefootsteps@btinternet.com and we will try to help.
Please bear in mind however our opening paragraph, as
our resources are limited and we are conscious that our
best is often very slow and not always conclusive.
Ian R Gumm
at Willowmead
20th January 2007
In the footsteps BATTLEFIELD TOURS SERVICE
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Source: http://www.searchwhateveraustralia.com.au/
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