General Chat

I have been doing a search on the UK National Archives web site. There used to be a couple of options where you could search for World War 1 service record information, along with medal card info.

The war service record option has now disappeared from the Archives. I am not dreaming, am I. It did used to be there?????

The WW1 info is now available on Ancestry. Oh it is a wonderful collection of information and quite easily searchable. You can scroll through thousands of images which are separated by a "New Soldiers Record" card between each serviceman's information. Just remember, once you have been past that card you are looking at a different set of information.

Just wondering why they didn't leave it on the Archives as well.

If they are military and before about 1920. Go into the search on Ancestry and click on the Military option. Put in their name, any details you might have, including their regimental number, and search. If you search by category (instead of relevance) chose the WW1 service records, or medal cards, options. Put in an estimate of date of birth, you can gues to about 10 years in most cases. The records contain info like, date of birth, place of birth, next of kin, marriage, children, address on enlistment, place of enlistment, medical conditions, conduct and behaviour, where served during the war and pensions allocated. All in various amounts of information.

Just surf around in the search facility you will get the hang of it. Take your time and try out the different buttons. Use the back button to return to previous screens. Put a hat on while you are learning, saves tearing out your hair!!!


The second option is VERY time consuming.

Another option is to just go into the military search option, (select the WW1 service records, or the medal cards) put one name in bring up the matches screen and go into one of the matches. It doesn't matter which person you choose. Click on the original image. You should be at a screen which has the option to browse all the records. By trial and error put in numbers at the top of the page and scroll through the results.

When you hit on a group of records with the correct surname keep advancing the number until you reach the person you need. Now remember this option is for stupid people with more time on their hands than common sense. It is far easier to search by name and regimental numbers. Some of the records make intriguing reading.

Oh dear I hope all this makes sense. If you are really stuck and don't mind others knowing your search names, start a thread under Trying to Find on GR and put in your search question. If you already have a thread elsewhere on GR use that one. Don't duplicate it.

There was never an option to search for WW1 records on the National Archives site!

To search on Ancestry isn't too difficult, unless it's a common name. Just put the name in - Christian name and surname. Don't bother with middle names as they didn't always give their full name. There are 2 series of records to look at - the pension records which are complete and the service records which only go up to the letter N at the moment. You get a list of results for each series and can easily eliminate some due to year of birth and/or place of birth.