Researching British soldiers
90 years on, for many of us the memory of Grandad's military service in the First World War is just a photograph, perhaps a medal, maybe a mention that he was at a particular place. So what exactly did Grandad do in the war? This section of the site is packed with tips on how to go about finding out, based on the accumulated experience of researching well over 1000 men.
Perfect preparation
Don't start here
What can I find online?
What is not online?
Records of men who lost their lives
Other useful facts and resources
Examples
Inspire yourself by seeing what can be found. Here is a collection of stories of men I have researched.
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Millions of men served in the army. You need to do everything you can to make sure that you can spot your man from among others. If he has a common surname this is vital, for you could be looking at hundreds or even thousands of men with the same name. So what kind of information helps?
His full name.
From family knowledge, a birth, marriage or death certificate. While it was not necessary for a man to enlist using his full name or provide any evidence of it, it obviously helps if you know it.
His regiment and/or number. If you do not know this, your life is going to be rather harder. It does not stop you - but it may be difficult to decide which man is Grandad from others of the same name.
His background. Where he came from, his date of birth and the name of his next of kin are all pieces of information that can help you pick out one man from others of the same name.
Where he served or what he did. Family stories of Grandad being at a particular place or having a particular role or being wounded can all help.
Useful clues can be gained before you really start from * photographs * discharge certificates or other documents * 1901 census information * medals (look for his regiment and number stamped on the rim) * local newspaper cuttings
In my experience it is not a good idea to begin by contacting a regimental museum. They do not hold the service records of soldiers, although some do have some useful lists*. Some of the museums are excellent, friendly and helpful. Others are under-staffed and unable to devote much time to your project. You may find the museum very useful once you have discovered the basics of a soldier's career.
*The Guards regiments do have records of their troops.
Many men are mentioned by name in published sources, although if you are just starting out this might be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Local newspapers carried stories of men enlisting (at least in the early days), mentions when they were wounded or killed, and even letters from the soldiers to the Editor. Post-war, many books were published that gave rolls of honour or even whole lists of men who joined up - but only for a relatively few units. Modern researchers have produced great work on, for example, the Pals battalions, local war memorials, etc - but again for only a relatively few units and places. This is an exercise best left until you are much further down the road and in possession of good information about units and dates that were important to Grandad.
Things have developed fast as far as online sources are concerned. Researchers can now find in minutes what used to take weeks. There are however very few useful free sources, particularly for men who survived.
| Most online sources let you search indexes free of charge but then ask for a fee to download documents. This can be an expensive mistake if you are not sure what you are doing. fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the documents for you, obtain a copy and give you a full interpretation of what they say. |
Army service records:
The military career of every soldier was recorded in great detail. His enlistment, postings, health, conduct and eventual discharge were all written down on official army forms. The forms used varied depending on the type of soldier Grandad was. The records give the most comprehensive view of a soldier's army career.
On the other hand, the service records provide very little information on what the soldier actually did and where he went. They are often hard to read and full of army abbreviations and jargon, which you might need help to interpret. Copies of the various papers were kept in a single central file. A given man's file can contain very little or a great deal, depending on his circumstances and the various actions that thinned out the files once they were archived after the war.
The surviving service records of men who served during the war and who died or were discharged before 1922 are available on microfilm at the National Archives (Kew, London) but are now being scanned and made available online via Ancestry.
There are two series:
> the so -called "Burnt Series" or National Archives collection WO363. This is the main collection of army service records of men who were not commissioned officers. Included are records of men who died and of those who survived, whether they were discharged to pension or not. Unfortunately it holds only about one third of all soldier's records, the rest having been destroyed by fire in 1940.
Many of the records are damaged and almost all are faded and incomplete. See this example:
> National Archives collection WO364, misleadingly called pension records by Ancestry. When the warehouse where the records were stored burned in 1940, luckily some had been withdrawn and were in the Ministry of Pensions. All of the records in WO364 are of men who had been pensioned, but it is not all men who had been pensioned.
> If the man served in the Royal Marine Light Infantry or the Royal Naval units of the Royal Naval Division, his service record can be searched and downloaded from the National Archives website
| Army service records are often terribly difficult to understand. fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the documents for you, obtain a copy and give you a full interpretation of what they say. |
Medals records:
The man's entitlement to medals - and all men, including officers, who went overseas qualified for medals - was recorded in great lists, called rolls. An index card was created for each man, telling you which roll he appeared in. They sometimes also provide other useful information. The index cards are available online, in two places.
First, at the National Archives website. The cards have been scanned and currently cost £3.50 to download. The quality of scanning leaves much to be desired and the download gives you a PDF page containing (usually) 6 cards, one of which will be the one you have ordered.
Second, at Ancestry. This company is in the process of scanning the cards and at time of writing only a small proportion are available. But the quality is much improved and the reverse face is included, although it is blank in the majority of cases.
Read our guide to interpreting a medal index card
| The medal rolls are not online. It is essential that you follow through from card to roll, for (notably for infantrymen and artillery) they will give you more information than is on the card. fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the rolls for you, obtain a copy and give you a full interpretation of what they say. |
War diaries:
Units of infantry battalion or artillery brigade size and above recorded their day to day movements and activities in operational records called war diaries. Most have survived and are available in the original at the National Archives. Some have now been digitised and can be downloaded from the National Archives website. Once again, they cost £3.50 to download a PDF file. Each file covers usually about a month's worth of the diary although this varies depending on how much is written. War diaries rarely mention men of the "other ranks" but officers and senior NCOs are often named. War diaries can be very useful for, for example, understanding an action in which a man was killed or wounded.
If you wish to obtain a diary that is not online or find the National Archives fees a bit too much, fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the diary for you, and obtain a copy for you either on paper or digital image. |
1918 Electoral Rolls (Absent Voters List) :
There was a General Election in 1918. All those away from their place of residence (so including all men and women in the army) were listed on Absent Voters Lists. These usually recorded the man's regiment, number and rank at the time, as well as his home address. The lists are not held centrally and are not 100% in existence and only a few are online. If all you know is his name but are reasonably certain you know where he lived, this is not a bad place to search.
Some AVLs are searchable on-line:
Accrington
Angmering
Dorset
Lancing
Leeds
Steyning
Wakefield
Woodchurch
Others are available to buy via the web:
Ashford
Kent
Newcastle upon Tyne
St Helens
The London Gazette :
The promotions and appointments of officers and the gallantry and other special awards including mentions in despatches were recorded in the official newspaper of Parliament, the London Gazette. This is now available free of charge and fully searchable (if temperamental) at Gazettes Online.
Army service records:
If the man continued to serve in the army after 1921 or was recalled, perhaps for service in WW2, then the chances of finding his record are excellent. The records are not yet in the public domain and you will need to apply to the Ministry of Defence's Army Personnel Centre. Here is a very useful guide
If Grandad was the Guards [Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish or Welsh] you have an excellent chance of finding his service record. The regiments hold copies at their modern London base at Wellington Barracks. Some require payment for the service, others invite a donation. In all cases, you should at first write, asking for a copy of the form that the regimental archivist requires in order to carry out a search. Address your enquiry to the Regimental Archivist, X Guards (substituting the name of the regiment you are interested in), Wellington Barracks, London. It will be helpful if you can include certain information, and if for example you do not know his number or even which Guards regiment he served with, first look him up in the medal rolls. There are also some service records of Guardsmen in the main collections at the National Archives.
If the man became a commissioned officer the chances are very good, although what remains in their files is only what was originally filed as 'miscellaneous correspondence'. Nonetheless this can still be extensive. Officers papers are at the National Archive in categories WO339 and WO374. They are not available on-line. Files of officers of the Territorial Royal Army Medical Corps no longer exist and the papers of many officers above the rank of Major also seem to be missing.
If you wish to obtain a copy of an officer's army service record, fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the file for you, obtain a copy for you either on paper or digital image and provide a full interpretation of his story. |
If the man served in the Household regiments [Household Battalion, Life Guards or Royal Horse Guards], his records should be intact. They are held in collection WO400 at the National Archives. The Household Cavalry Museum, Combermere Barracks, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 3DN, also has a set. Written enquiries are welcomed but enquirers are recommended to contact the Museum for access conditions before visiting in person.
When the Unburnt Series WO364 was filmed, many records were not filmed in proper alphabetical sequence. In fact the series is in three collations (only the first of which appears to be in the Ancestry.co.uk first release). The last of the three is called the Mis-sorts. Here is a complete index to what is there.
Medal rolls :
The medal rolls are held at the National Archives and are not online.
War diaries:
Units of infantry battalion or artillery brigade size and above recorded their day to day movements and activities in operational records called war diaries. Most have survived and are available in the original at the National Archives.
1918 Electoral Rolls (Absent Voters List) :
There was a General Election in 1918. All those away from their place of residence (so including all men and women in the army) were listed on Absent Voters Lists. These usually recorded the man's regiment, number and rank at the time, as well as his home address. The lists are not held centrally and are not 100% in existence. They are held at a variety of County Records Offices or local history sections of main libraries of the area where the man lived in 1918. Some are held at the British Library too. If all you know is his name but are reasonably certain you know where he lived, this is not a bad place to search.
Information about Absent Voters Lists held:
Bedfordshire
Birmingham
Burnley
Camden
County Durham
Croydon
Glamorgan, including Cardiff
Glasgow
Liverpool
Monmouthshire's service record including Newport
Tyne and Wear
Worcestershire
Known copies in libraries, etc:
Birkenhead East is held at Birkenhead Library
Norwich is held at the Central Library in Norwich (not online)
If you know of any more AVLs or are compiling an online version of a list, please contact me and I will add yours to this index.
The Army List :
The promotions and appointments of officers were recorded in the monthly Army List. The library at the National Archives includes a full set, but other libraries may also be able to help.
Men who lost their lives in the war
The records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
This remarkable organisation was originally formed as the Graves Registration Commission during the war. They meticulously recorded the details and burial place of every casualty, where conditions allowed. After the war came the immense job of clearing the battlefields. Many bodies were simply not in a condition to be identifiable, and many early graves had been destroyed by subsequent bombardment. The men and parts of me thus found were buried as 'unknown soldiers', or had special memorials erected saying that they had been formerly buried somewhere else but their graves had been lost. Memorials to the Missing were erected, listing those men known to be gone but whose body had not yet been identified. Today, the Commission maintains all British and Commonwealth war graves and such Memorials.
You can search for details of a casualty through the CWGC website.
"Soldiers Died in the Great War"
An excellent source for locating those who died. Published in 1921 with facsimile copies since. In 80 parts plus a separate volume for officers. Each volume deals with individual Regiment or Corps, and lists those who died, giving dates, locations, army number. Not 100% accurate but an excellent record that was based on regimental records. ISBN 1 871505 01 1 to 1 871505 80 1. There is a full set available to the public in Birmingham Central Library. This work is now obtainable from the Imperial War Museum, or as a searchable CD-ROM available from the Naval & Military Press. 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 Grandad's chums. Inevitably it does contain some transcription errors - but then again the originals have errors too. Overall, an excellent resource but it is very expensive. Many branches of the Western Front Association have a copy, as do some libraries - including the one at the National Archives.
Other paper sources:
Rolls of Honour were published in many forms: as war memorials in public places, in books, etc by regiments, businesses, schools, clubs. Once you know Grandad's units and service, it is worth checking to see if any of his connections published a such a roll. Obituaries, reports and letters in newspapers can also be an excellent source of information. The war diaries rarely mention an ordinary ranker by name, but it is worth checking as some do.
War memorials:
There is a hive of activity out there as many people are researching the names on their local war memorials. A thorough online search can sometimes pay dividends.
If you wish to find more details of the circumstances of the death of a soldier, fourteeneighteen/research can help. We'll find the relevant details, war diaries, maps and other useful background material, obtain a copy for you either on paper or digital image and provide a full interpretation of his story. |
From the photographic archive of the Imperial War Museum, with permission: A stonemason engraving a headstone destined for the grave of a Canadian casualty of the First World War. All of the graves and memorials are under the care of the CWGC.
Other useful facts and resources
Get a lot more from his Medal Records
> Read
this
Was your
man a
Prisoner of War?
> Read
this
The Silver
War Badge for men
who were discharged
> Read
this
Find
the records of gallantry awards
> Read
this
Did he serve with the British Red Cross?
> Read
this
Does a photo show a pre-Great
War medal?
> Read
this
The National Roll of the Great War
is worth a try
> Read
this
Develop your understanding of what he actually did in the army
More than 5.5 million men served in the British army in the Great War. Their experiences varied widely. The branch of the army they joined and even the date of joining had an important effect on what they did, how they trained, the regimental number they were given, when they moved to the active front, where the went, which battles they took part in, and so on. It is worth spending some time while you carry out your detailed research in developing some understanding of the life of a soldier and the type of soldier he may have been. If you know when he enlisted, for example, it can offer some clues as to the type of soldier he became. You will find the Soldier's Life section of this site useful in doing this.
Short cuts
It is just possible that one of the many other people interested in this subject will know something about your soldier. Tap into a worldwide network of 1000's of pals at > The Great War Forum
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