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| Military Genealogy Tutorial |
Welcome to the Military Genealogy Tutorial to help you understand how you can find as much out about your ancestors past as possible.
We are always happy to help you in any way we can, perhaps by pointing you in the right direction or even advising you of what is actually possible in our experience and sadly, what may not be.
The guidelines below are based on dedicated research and our findings throughout our thousands of hours spent on individual and general military & conflict searches.
Please use these guidelines and helpful hints & links in the first instance to get you started, if you reach a brick wall or are confused at any time simply contact us or/and ask a question within the forums.
If you need detailed research tasks carried out, please click on the Hire a Researcher link at the top of each page.
Researching military records can be a daunting task, some of our helpful hints are sure to assist you in your quest.
When searching it is very useful if you already have the following:
Full name of the individual. If you have as full a name as possible as this will make tracking your individual easier.
E.g. John Smith. There are hundreds of 'J Smiths' in the casualty roll of each year WWI alone.
If you have a middle name it will make things a bit easier. E.g. John A Smith, although bear in mind that some memorial records will only hold the first initial which makes things a little harder on a first search.
The Service in which they served. Army, Royal Navy or Air Force.
Rank and Regiment or Naval Ship or Squadron. Having the service number can be particularly helpful as this is 'a unique identifier'.
Find out when the person served; pre First World War, First World War and after 1920, some records will be much more complete depending on the era and even if the record is still regarded as 'classified'.
The more details you already have the better. Even the Enlistment date and Demob dates are useful as well.
British Army
Every soldier had a 'service record', sadly only about 30% still exist.
A service record is made up from a number of different forms which record the military career of the individual.
The types and designation of these forms will vary greatly, this goes hand in hand with the fact that many records will be handwritten and have annotations from the serviceman/woman themselves or a dependants enquiry, therefore whilst very interesting per se, the general legibility of some records is poor.
Service records are often the only place where family details, age, birthplace and former occupations are recorded.
Collection WO363 'The Burnt records'-TNA
Many pre WWI records were destroyed intentionally by the war department when being placed into limited storage space in the 1930's, many more were destroyed in the Blitz of 1940.
The bulk of these consist of discharge records of those leaving the army between 1914 and 1921, including those who died, sadly only between 20-30% of the total now survive and the originals are not accessible: there are microfiche copies of the surviving records although many are merely fragments of the originals, severely damaged by fire and water.
Pre WW1 and up until 1920
Pre WW1 and records up to 1920 are held at the National Archives in Kew, and are available to view there by appointment.
WWI Medal cards are also available to download, for a fee, from National Archives - Documents Online. There are help guides on the National Archives site that explain in detail how to read the cards as they can be tricky!
There are records other than WO363 within the national archive which are not presently available elsewhere:
WO364 -commonly misnamed as 'the pension records' these contain a small part of what would have originally been in a service record for a number of persons.
WO97 -Service records until 1914, many remain in their original format at TNA.
WO96 - as per wo97 but for the militias that existed until 1908.
PIN26- pensions records, very small collection.
It is worth noting that if a soldier reenlisted and served therefore after 1921 his records would still be held by the MOD only (see below).
1921 to the present.
For ex-servicemen wishing to obtain their Service Records they can apply here:
Army Personnel Centre,
Disclosure 2,
Mail Point 515,
Kentigern House,
65 Brown Street,
Glasgow,
G2 8EX
Tel: 0845 600 9663
For relatives wishing to obtain Service Records of Deceased soldiers they must apply to the same centre using the prefix:
Army Personnel Centre,
Historical Disclosures,
Mail Point 555
A widow or widower can obtain a search for their late spouses Service records free of charge, where as for any other family member there is a charge of £30 (currently).
These searches much be accompanied by a Kinship form and a Search Document. Full details of how to go about this procedure can be found on this website.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/army.html
Please note however these charges are for a search only: they do not guarantee a record will be found & produced, many may have been lost or are even still classified in certain special circumstances.
TNA collections:
WO339-Officers records up until 1922, incomplete, most senior officers not included.
WO374 -TA Officers prior to 1922.
WO400-Household cavalry regiments.
Medals
Campaign medals
These are crucially important if you cannot find a service record.
If any soldier was posted overseas he will have qualified for a campaign medal.
Medal records do not have age, address or next of kin information, however a soldiers details were listed on a 'medal roll', usually including the regiments name (not corps however), and service number and a roll index number and rank.
A soldier may have more than one medal index roll.
Gallantry Awards
Awards are generally made for specific acts of bravery, although a few were given in new years and Kings/Queens birthday honours, many have a citation published which describes the act of valour they were awarded for, however this is not always the case: The Military medal being a case in point.
Awards and citations are generally recorded in the London 'gazette' and were then replicated a day or so later in 'the times', often citations and mentions in despatches are called 'gazetted' in actual fact.
Actions leading to an award are often referred to in a unit's war diary, or even their regimental history.
Gallantry award card indexes do exist in TNA but these are not complete.
Foreign Awards
Many allied nations also bestow(ed) awards to British service personnel, notably France and Belgium in WWI.
The wearing of foreign medals was/is not permitted unless with royal decree however!
Foreign medals do not generally have a citation record.
Long service and good conduct medals
WO102 TNA lists awards up until 1919 only.
Silver War Badge
This was first made in 1916 to those who were honourably discharged: perhaps in recognition that they might otherwise be viewed with suspicion!
It was also retrospectively issued to those who had served since 1914.
Records for these are shown in TNA WO329.
Press
Deaths were usually recorded in 'The Times' and 'The Scotsman' in some cases, the times archive is available for viewing via some libraries and educational establishments.
Royal Navy
The Navy has always prided itself on good record keeping: accuracy was often a matter of life and death in navigation terms and record keeping followed this naval tradition!
Was the person an officer or rating?
If the person was an officer you should find their name in the Navy List.
Prior to 1860 it is important to know the name of a ship that the person you are looking for, served on in the case of sailors, and which company or division a marine served in.
Nearly all of the records of service for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines from 1860-1923 still survive.
The records, whilst very thorough, do not always contain the records of the person you are looking for.
The admiralty records are usually arranged according to when an individual joined. The records of Royal Navy ratings from 1873 are arranged by service number.
The following records have been moved from the former PRO (public record office) to the National Archive (TNA) and are available for public access:
Royal Navy Officers commissioned prior to 1914,Royal Navy Ratings who enlisted prior to 1924,First World War records for the Women's Royal Naval Service, Royal Marine Officers commissioned prior to 1926, Royal Marine Other Ranks that enlisted prior to 1926.
Medals
If you have any medals awarded to a member of the Royal Navy or Royal Marines are usually named with the recipient's details, either on the back or around the edge, these may additionally be useful in narrowing down the medal award to a particular conflict or campaign and thus possibly a date.
WWI
50,000 men who served during WW1 are available to search and download from the National Archives Documents Online. Documents-Royal Naval Division.
After WW1
Prior to 1972 Royal Naval personnel were given their service records on discharge. Only pay details were kept for Pension purposes. Therefore the only information held on RN personnel who served prior to 1972 is their Service details (number, rank, name etc) and a list of dates and ships/shore bases. As with Army searches there must be a Search Document and a Certificate of Kinship supplied along with a fee, these are available for download from this website.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/royal_navy.html
The address to send the applications to is:
RN Disclosures Cell
Room 48
West Battery
Whale Island
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO2 8DX
Telephone: 02392 628779/ 02392 628781
Royal Air Force
Prior to 1922 Officers, and Airmen serving before 1924 are held at The National Archives. Records for Airmen and Officers serving after these dates are held by the RAF. These records are retained by Service Number, Rank and Full Name, and will also contain the Date of Birth. It is important that as much information as possible can be provided in order to locate the correct record.
For current and former airmen a search document must be completed or in the case of family members of deceased airmen a completed search document and, a Certificate of Kinship must accompany along with the appropriate fee. These forms can be downloaded from this site and the address as to where to send them is also given.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/raf.html
All Services
Operational data
War diaries
Overseas units recorded their daily movements and actions in a war diary, these may be very useful if you wish to research why a gallantry medal was issued or which action a person was killed in.
War diaries are held in TNA WO95.
Some, although not all by a long stretch, will be meticulous in recording deaths and wounded.
Not all diaries have survived to be archived, some regimental museums will contain the original document and may allow access upon request.
POW Records
There are very few records currently held within the UK, most records for European theatre of WWI and WWII are held by the Swiss red Cross.
The Swiss Red Cross do charge 100SF for each search: like the MOD disclosures unit a search is no guarantee that anything will be produced by such a search!
There are some records held in TNA WO161.
An officers list was produced during WWI, and sometimes war diaries will also record those taken prisoner.
Records of men who died during captivity are kept by the Commonwealth War Graves commission.
The order of St John Of Jerusalem also has some data up until July 1917.
Further Help:
Your questions answered
A list of frequently asked questions of our support team.
Did you know? - significant military dates
Dates where significant history has taken place.
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