How to research a WW1 casualty

[alcavtay]

A beginner’s guide to researching your WW1 ancestors – casualties of the Great War

If your family member was killed in WW1 it is much easier to find information about them. As always, the more you can find out about them from family records etc the better. Knowing their Regiment, Battalion, Service number and date of death would be perfect but any of these bits of information can help. Many of these records are available through genealogy sites, remember that you can use Ancestry.co.uk and findmypast for free at Liverpool libraries.

If you’re not sure about their regiment you can try looking at the medal index cards, they are available on genealogy sites or you can pay £3:50 per card download from National Archives Online. These cards show the name, rank, battalion and regiment of the soldier, which medals they were entitled to with the details of which medal roll they were recorded on. They also have the date they first entered the war (this is when they went overseas, not when they enlisted) and the area they first went to. They may have an address for the family. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/reco ... ds-ww1.htm

Or you can start with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website http://www.cwgc.org.uk where you can search a database of casualties with whatever information you have. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to identify your relative through the service information or family members mentioned in the ‘other information’ section.

If you have trouble finding them, and there are some mistakes as you’d expect in such a huge database, try ‘Geoff’s search engine’ http://www.hut-six.co.uk/cgi-bin/search1421.php which will search the CWGC database using different search terms, for example you can search for part of a name e.g. ‘beginning with’ ‘ends with’

You can also check with the variety of HMSO publications from the 1920s including “UK Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919” which often give information about place of birth, place of enlistment, and place of residence and sometimes have more details about family members. The Naval versions often have next of kin and their address. These were multi-part publications , you may be able to find the section you require in your local archives or for sale on genealogy CD-Roms, transcriptions are also available on the major genealogy sites .

There are also many other privately-published rolls of honour e.g. De Ruvigny’s Roll of honour which is available on genealogy sites but you can also find several volumes online which you can download as pdf files. Volume 1 http://archive.org/details/rollofhonourbiog01ruvi Volume 2 http://archive.org/details/rollofhonourbiog02ruvi (vol 3 not available this way)

It is worth searching the online archive for rolls of honour, they were often created by employers (especially banks) schools and universities and can hold biographies and photographs. If you don’t know about this resource, it holds scanned copies of out-of-copyright books which are free to view and download. http://archive.org/advancedsearch.php similarly, google books also has some complete versions of useful titles, search here: http://books.google.co.uk/bkshp?hl=en&tab=wp

Service records -If you are lucky, your relative will be in the 30-40% of soldiers whose service papers survived the air raids of WW2. They come in two collections – the ‘burnt records’ which were damaged by the air raid that destroyed most of the other records, and the ‘pensions collection’ which is a selection of service records which were being held as part of a review of pensions, they are not all records specifically about pensions. They can be found on the major genealogy websites.

If you can afford to risk £10 you could try the pensions collection now held by the Western Front Association. http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/ ... cords.html it’s £25 for a lookup and £15 refunded if your man’s name isn’t there.

Other places to look include the London Gazette for promotions, military awards or mentions in dispatches. This is freely available online but the search engine can be a bit tricky. There is a good guide to searching the gazette here: http://217.154.230.218/NR/rdonlyres/A4E ... ar2010.pdf and the gazette itself is here: http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/

Use your Liverpool library number to get free access from home to the Times Digital Archive here http://liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/download-library/ and search for your relative, their regiment, the battle they were killed at etc. The search will also cover death notices and casualty lists, if they were an officer you have a good chance of finding something.

Finally, to fill in the details when you know what regiment they were with it is always worth a look at the Long Long Trail, http://www.1914-1918.net/ for information about their movements during the war and major battles. The forum that goes with this site is also very helpful, you have to register but it is free.

Or try googling the regiment, there are many people who have researched their local battalion and put it online e.g. http://www.8theastlancs.co.uk/

Some regiments have their own museums with associated archives and research services e.g. http://www.liverpoolscottish.org.uk/

If your relative served with the King’s Liverpool Regiment check here to see if they have an entry in the Devereux Database a Liverpool Museum, you’ll have to go to the museum to view it but it could be a mine of information. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/ ... /kingsreg/

Thanks for reading what has turned into an essay - I hope you found something useful.
Amanda

[Wendyem]

Thank you Amanda, I for one have found your missive very interesting & looks like an informative viewing time ahead for me.

Wendy