The classic source for information on soldiers who
fought in the Great War 1914 to 1918 is the Public Record Office in Kew, England who have
produced on-line some outstanding articles. In my view I can do no better than refer you
to these articles and to make it easier I have created some hyper-links to the ones that I
think you will find most useful.
A couple of points though before you jump away from this
web site.
It is hard to conceive the numbers of British Army
soldiers who died from all the nations in the First World War ... estimates vary but they
are all around the 672,000, so if you are one of those whose ancestor formed part of that
death toll then the best place to start your search is the "Soldiers Died" CD
ROM that most Family History Societies will have. If you are about to embark upon
intensive research for multiple ancestors, and you have adequate funds, you may wish to
invest in your own CD ROM of this huge database. I am very pleased with my version and if
you wish to read more about what is in the disk, here is a link to the publishers.
The next fact that you need to know is that in the Second
War during 1940, the building that housed all the soldiers records from the Great War was
hit by a bomb, and the subsequent damage has meant that many of the documents (some 60%)
were lost for ever (including my own grand-father's war history) and others
suffered from a combination of fire and water damage. The good news however is that the
Public Record Office has now completed a restoration of those 40% of damaged documents, and they
are now available to the public.
So here are some of the best links that I can find ...
enjoy!
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War 1 Service Records that are available: WO 363 First World War
'Burnt Documents' Project. Approximately 2,800,000 service records survived the
bombing and are kept in WO 363 & WO 364. This page shows what you might expect to find
in these records.This is the PRO maintained list that tells
you when records will be available ... the dates are by Surname letter.
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War 1 Army Officers Papers, 1914-1920: There are 77,800 officers who were in the
Territorial Army or who had temporary commissions, and 140,000 regular establishment
officers. This page explains how to locate their records ... and what can be found.
Unfortunately this may not be a lot as these records were also bombed in 1940. I managed
to find a few documents concerning my grandfather Captain Dickson (formerly of the Leinster
Regiment) but nothing like as rewarding as the pre
1914 documents that I found when he was the Regiment's Sergeant Major. However, some
records are reported to be quite extensive and rewarding ... so it is worth searching.
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War 1 Army War Diaries: British Army War Diaries: First World War,
1914-1918, Military Records Information Leaflet 11.
War Diaries were required to be kept by all units of Battalion
size and above. The amount of detail recorded varies.
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War 1 Courts Martial : To be fair this page deals with more than WW1, but it is where
you will find the detail of WW1 Courts Martial. It explains the difference in proceedings
between Officers, NCOs and Other Ranks. Generally speaking you will need WO 71 that covers
the period from 1914 to 1986.
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British War Medal
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1914 Star
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Territorial Force War Medal
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Victory Medal
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1914-1915 Star
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Silver War Badge
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This page tells you where to look and what you might
expect to find.
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War 1: Gallantry Medals : Distinguished Conduct Medal, Meritorious Service Medal,
Mention in Dispatches (MiDs), Distinguished Service Order & Military Cross, where the
microfiche of the card index is, (no on-line search here!) and how to use it
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War 1: Yeomanry Forces : Not strictly WW1 records, but this is the page for finding
service records of the Yeomanry, Imperial Yeomanry (fought in Boer War), Volunteers, and
Territorials.
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