Forces War Records online

[MaryA]

I don't want to endorse this on our websites board, particularly since it is a subscription site, but just wondered whether anybody had tried it and what you thought of it?
http://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/

[daggers]

Not my own experience but I understand that they have no material which can not be found elsewhere.
D

[Katie]

Everyone jumping on the bandwagon.

[Bertieone]

I threw just over a fiver at it and its crap.

[dickiesam]

I threw just over a fiver at it and its crap.

Well there's the same recommendation I was going to give it!

Seems to be an off-shoot of Forces-ReUnited with whom I had a number of quibbles over the way they accepted inaccurate postings, such as several different spellings of a regiment's name in the Regiment input box, and therefore several different indexings, which made it almost impossible to do a decent search for old mates. You would not believe how many different ways to input 'Cheshire Regiment' they accepted and indexed as separate regiments. For instance... 'The Cheshires', 'Cheshire', '22nd', 'ches regt', 'cheshire reg', 'Chesh reg', etc! And this was in dear old England not some village in the Indian continent.

A saying goes.. You only have one chance to make a first impression! Needless to say I finally lost patience and gave up!

[MaryA]

Glad you all have opinions, and similar ones at that to what I was thinking. I won't be putting the link on our Websites Board.

[militaryman]

Hello and Happy New Year to all.

Please note that Forces War Records have transcribed digital data, i.e. they don't currently hold original images such as pension records etc, though they have added over five million named records and are currently adding over 200,000 records a month.

As for the records they do have a large 'Collections List' that states the collection and information that can be viewed here: https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/collections/list/

Many of these are exclusive and not on any other website such as: British Jewry Book of Honour 1922, Home Guard Auxiliary Units 1939-45, Italian Prisoner of War Camp Records, Bomber Command Ruhr Offensive to name but a few collections. They are also working on lots of material from the TNA that hasn't yet been released on the internet or by any other genealogy website. They also have a Historic Documents Library that already holds over one thousand publications some more than a hundred years old that is automatically cross referenced each time you search for an ancestor or other piece of information on the FWR site, and if anything matches they will show you an article from a publication that also gives you information on your ancestors life.


If you have any questions PLEASE contact the 'Customer support' or 'Live chat' as they are happy to help answer any questions you might have regarding the website and the services.

[MaryA]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Thank you for the update on the site, it may well be worthwhile giving it a go.

[militaryman]

Hello and thank you for the kind reply.

If we can help in any way please contact us. As stated we do have a 'Customer Helpline', that is always ready to help with research or account problems. Also we have lots planned for the Centenary of WWI with many new records being added along with rare content added to the historic library.