British Military Records: Difference between revisions

[[Image:British Military2.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Member of the 87th Regiment of Foot of the British Army, 1793]]

Military records are potentially of great genealogical value and may provide information not found in any other source. These records identify individuals who served or were eligible to serve in the military. Military service (other than the militia) was usually a lifetime career. Officers came from the upper classes; soldiers usually came from the poor. On occasion, compulsory conscription was enforced and even "press-gangs" were used.  

You may find evidence that an ancestor served in the military from family records, biographies, census, probates, civil registration, or church records. In addition, militaria such as headress badges, buttons, photographs of uniforms, soldier's trunks, paybooks, letters, colours, and medals with clasps can provide proof of ancestral links. Medals can have the soldier's number on the rim of the medal itself.

The National Archives at Kew in the London area is the caretaker of most of the military records. It is important to understand the "fonds" or the way records are grouped. There is a Department code (ADM for admiralty, WO for War Office, etc) and a series number.  

For more general information about the war, including online documentaries, see the [[War of 1812, 1812 to 1815|War of 1812]] article.

'''1914-1918''' - First World War. About 35,000 Welsh servicemen died.

The Royal marines originally maintained military discipline on navy vessels. It has been a separate corps of the military since 1755, although under the control of the Admiralty and forming part of the Naval Service. Alphabetically arranged records of marines exist from 1790, some by enlistment date and others by discharge date. [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/browse-refine.asp?CatID=36&searchType=browserefine&pagenumber=1&query=*&queryType=1 Royal Marine Service records] from 1842 -1926 can be accessed online via The National Archives.

For more information see "[http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/royalmarines.htm?WT.lp=rg-3189 Looking for records of a Royal Marine]" on The National Archives website.

* Cavalry  

* Infantry  

* Corps (e,g, Army Service Corps; Royal Signals; Royal Engineers etc.)  

Service records for "Other ranks" i.e. not officers, who served in the British army are held at The National Archives (TNA), Kew, although various online subscription-based research providers offer access to digitised copies. At the time of writing, these services were not complete although new records up to and including 1913 are constantly being added. The leading provider of this service is $ [http://www.findmypast.co.uk Find My Past], but $ [http://www.TheGenealogist.co.uk TheGenealogist.co.uk] has army lists from 1806-1940.

Officers papers were compiled and held separately although they too are located at TNA. They are not currently available to view online and can only be accessed at TNA.

You can search the [https://www.familysearch.org/ Family History Library Catalog] to obtain the microfilm number of the TNA Catalogue Number WO 364 records. Alternatively, $ [http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ ancestry.co.uk] also has the records available to search free of charge although viewing is via subscription.  

These records are the service files of soldiers who were discharged from the British army between 1914 and 1920. They are a collection known as the "unburned documents." They represent about 8 percent of the soldiers who served during those years.

The files usually contain the soldier’s unit name and number, birthplace, age at time of enlistment, name and address of next of kin, and date and reason for discharge. They may also include the names of his parents, spouse, and children. Some mention his occupation before he enlisted in the service and show the assignments he had in the service. Some files contain death certificates.

Search the Family History Library Catalog (FHLC) by title for: Military records of the British Army, 1914-1920 you will see two items with that exact title and several that have letters of the alphabet added to the end of the title. Look at the catalog entries for the two without any additional letters.

If you cannot locate the service papers of the soldier you are searching for, it is also worthwhile looking within the pension papers index as many men were entitled to pensions for prior service or due to injuries sustained during WW1.

Individual regimental archives may also hold limited records and it is well worth writing to the relevant regimental museums. The Guards depot (Grenadier, Coldstream, Irish, Welsh & Scots) also keep separate archives and can, on request supply information. Bear in mind though that some archives, quite reasonably, request payment for such services.

* Holding, Norman H. World War I Army Ancestry. 2nd ed. Solihull, England: Federation of Family History Societies (Publications) Ltd., 1991. (Family History Library book 942 M2hol.)  

* Holding, Norman H. More Sources of World War I Army Ancestry. 2nd ed. Solihull, England: Federation of Family History Societies (Publications) Ltd., 1991. (FHL book 942 M24hnr.)  

There is currently a £30 fee for copies of these records and the record copies are normally heavily censored.  

The RAF maintains its own records archive although officers papers are downloadable (£) from TNA here: $ [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/browse-refine.asp?CatID=43&searchType=browserefine&pagenumber=1&query=*&queryType=1 RAF Officers records.] Other ranks service records are not online but if service ended prior to 1920, can be accessed at TNA. Post-1920 records are dealt with in the same way as army & Navy records under FOI requests(see above).  

Established by Royal Charter in 1917, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission pays tribute to the 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars from <u>all services </u>including civillian war dead. It is a non-profit-making organisation that was founded by Sir Fabian Ware. The Commonwealth includes such countries as Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand &amp; South Africa.

Tokens or medals have been awarded to British service personnel since the medieval times although the first officially named campaign medal is the Waterloo Medal (1815). The Military General Service Medal instituted in 1847, covered a retrospective period and was awarded to all army personnel that had served on active campaigns between 1793-1815. Each medal was named to the recipient along with his unit details. A clasp (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a bar) bearing the name of the relevant campaign or battle was attached to the ribbon suspension, with subsequent clasps being added in the sequence in which they were earned. In some cases 10 or more campaign clasps were earned. 29 clasps were authorised in total. Altogether, over 25,000 medals were issued.  

These two medals started a precedent of issuing campaign medals that still continues to this day, with the RAF joining the process in 1918 by following the lead set by the Army. It is a widely collected field and there are many resources on the subject. From a family history perspective, knowing what medals a relative was entitled to can lead to fascinating journies of discovery as well as the medal themselves providing useful information.

As such, honours and awards tend to be publicly announced in the London Gazette newspaper. The online search archive can require a certain amount of skill to find what or rather who you are searching for but it can yield fantastic results: [http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/search London Gazette Archive]

WW1 Army medal index cards are available through $ [http://www.ancestry.co.uk/ ancestry.co.uk] - if you have a subscription they are free. Otherwise you will have to pay £2 fee to download it if you get it through The National Archives website: $ [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/browse-refine.asp?CatID=10&searchType=browserefine&pagenumber=1&query=*&queryType=1 Medal Index Cards] . These cards contain details of name, rank, service number(s), unit(s) as well as confirmation of medal entitlement. Some of the cards have additional information on the reverse such as theatre of operations, home addresses, next of kin and so forth. Only Ancestry have copied both sides of these cards.   Information on how to decipher the Medal Index Cards available at [http://www.1914-1918.net/grandad/mic.htm Ancestry and TNA] There is not an equivalent system for detailing medals awarded to members of the Royal Navy and RAF - medal details were recorded on the service papers and likewise, non-WW1 medals are only annotated on service records for all services.  

[[Image:Wo12book.png|thumb|left|Wo12book.png]]"Muster Rolls and Pay Rates" were monthly accounts that were kept of military enlistment and pay schedules. They were kept for privates up through officers and may contain valuable information such as "good conduct" awards, punishments, special assignments, and the like. A commanding officer made every effort to list everyone on his muster rolls since the number of men determined his funding. The records usually list each person assigned to a ship or regiment at the muster date, his age on joining, the date he joined, the place where he joined, and sometimes information such as a dependent list (in later army musters) and birthplace (on sea musters from 1770). Muster records for the Royal Artillery are the earliest, beginning in 1708. Other army musters exist for 1760 to 1878. After 1790, they were kept in bound volumes.<u><ref>Hamilton-Edwards, Gerald (1977). In Search of Army Ancestry. Phillimore, p. 73.</ref></u> Navy musters cover 1667 to 1878. Naval musters contain "alphabets" (indexes organized by the first letter of the surname) from 1765.These records can also be used to track the movements of a specific individual.  

These records begin in 1732 and end in 1878. They cover guards, infantry, cavalry, and household troops. According to the National Archives these records also include special groups, such as colonial troops, various foreign legions, special regiments, and other depots.

If the information you seek is after 1868. there is a "Roll of Married Establishment" which lists husbands and wives as shown below:

Recording all this information must have been a daunting task as these books are very large as shown in the earlier picture. There are 13, 307 volumes of these records located at the National Archives. To view them, you have to be there and view them in a special document room.

Because photopying these very large volumes would be extremely difficult, you can use a camera (without flash) to capture the images.

Visit $ [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=3&CATID=13072&SearchInit=4&CATREF=wo+12&j=1 WO12 Series General Muster Books and Pay Lists] to learn more about these valuable records.

These records often contain details of an individual’s reason for pension, his fitness on discharge, and sometimes the address where pension payments were sent.

Army pension records start in 1690. Pensions were awarded for length of service, disability, or wounds to most individuals who legally left army service. Sometimes the widows or children of military men received the payments. Payments to retired officers, called half-pay, were not considered pensions. Many different types of pension records covering different time periods still exist.

Naval pension records begin as early as 1617 and give the name of pensioner, reason for discharge, and sometimes next of kin, birthplace, age, and physical description.

Widow’s or children’s pension records often include marriage or baptismal certificates in support of the claim for assistance.

There are many other pension-related records among those of the Paymaster General (Class PMG) at the Public Record Office. The Family History Library also has some pension records.    

At the [https://www.familysearch.org/s/catalog/show?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fcatalog.familysearch.org%3A8080%2Fwww-catalogapi-webservice%2Fitem%2F732111&hash=HloWXpZgU9zB10k5M56iYku8TUc%253D Family History Library] the records are on microfilm and arranged by regiment. These records have been digitised and are available online via [[FindMyPast.co.uk]]. There are also searchable on [[United Kingdom, Chelsea Pensioners' Service Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)|FamilySearch.org]]

It was possible to have a qualified pension commuted to allow a soldier to immigrate to British colonies. A list of those who did, between the years 1830-1839, is found online at [http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/passengerlists/chelseab.htm TheShipsList.com].  

The Public Record Office has a computerized index to the soldiers’ documents from 1760 to 1854. The index shows the name, age, birthplace, year of enlistment and discharge, the regiment, and the reference to the original document.

[[Image:British Military3.jpg|thumb|right|357x417px|British Military3.jpg]]  

*Colonial armies were forces raised in other countries. Records of these forces are usually in the country where the forces were raised. A notable exception is the Indian Army, for which many records are held at the British Library Oriental and India Office Collections, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB England. British Army in India information, [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/indianarmy.htm click here].  

These records are at The National archives. For further information on military records for branches of the service other than navy or regular army, see the military record handbooks at the end of this section.

Pre-1914 records for both the army and the navy are at [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/militaryhistory/ The National Archives] - [[TNA]]

The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU England

== External Links ==

*[http://www.1914-1918.net/labour.htm The Long, Long Trail] : The British Army in the Great War