Looking for your soldier Ancestor?

If you are looking for a simple explanation of how to trace your British Army Ancestor, then this page should help you.

After 1873 the Records for British soldiers are filed alphabetically by name. However the way they are filed does vary slightly. Between 1873 and 1882 soldiers records are filed alphabetically according to the part of the army in which they served, those categories are the cavalry, the artillery, the infantry and Corps. These soldiers papers usually all contain "attestation" papers, that is the documentation completed at the time of enlistment, and the basic history of the soldiers career within the army.

If your ancestor was a professional soldier, and completed a full term in the army your chances of finding the documentation increase dramatically because in all probability your ancestor would have been awarded a pension. There are two types of pensions "in pension" and "out pension". Most of these soldiers who received a pension did so as an "out pensioner " from the Chelsea Hospital.

So assuming that you can get to the Public Record Office in Kew, London you need to head for the index WO 97 and look for the "piece number" for the year that you believe your ancestor was discharged from the army. So for instance, if you had an ancestor Smith who had served in the 100-foot and left of the army in 1881 after 22 years service, you would search WO 97 in the infantry group to find the piece number that contained "S. -Smith-1881". Having located the piece number it is then a simple matter of ordering the documents using the computerised "on line" service.

After 1883 the group classification was discontinued and all the soldiers records were filed alphabetically, by surname, for the whole of the army. So for a soldier discharged to pension in 1904, you would search WO 97 to locate the piece for 1904 and then for the surname.

MEDICAL PENSIONS  

Sometimes, if you are unlucky, the record cannot be located for your ancestor then provided that you are confident your ancestor did receive a pension it is possible to search the actual pension records of the Chelsea Hospital. There are four main groups of pension that can be searched, these are medical pensions between 1715 and 1913 (WO 116), service pensions between 1823 and 1913 (WO 117), registers of pensioners between 1715 and 1857 (WO 120) and certificates of pensioners service between 1782 and 1887 (WO 121).

If you are really unlucky and still did not find your ancestor, then may be he did not get a pension and your ancestor may have purchased his discharge, for even worse, died in service. In these cases you must really know the name of the Regiment that your ancestor served in because now you need to search the regimental pay lists (muster rolls).

MUSTER ROLLS

Using muster rolls it is possible to establish the enlistment date and dates that the soldier moved with his Regiment around the world. These records also contain the date of discharge. The rolls were taken either every month or every quarter and they are now found, bound together, in volumes for each Regiment by year. From 1888 the practice of keeping pay lists stopped and muster rolls stopped altogether after the mid 1890s.

There are a number of indexes to check; the first is for the period 1732 to 1878 (WO 12) and the second for period 1887 to 1898 (WO 16). The artillery between 1708 and 1878 can be checked in WO 10 and WO 69, the engineers between 1816 and 1878 in WO 11 and finally the militia and volunteers, between 1780 and 1878, are in WO 13 and WO 68.

Those kept in WO 12 are the cavalry, the guards, regular infantry, special regiments and corps, colonial troops, regiments and their brigade depots. For engineers in WO 11 these contain the names of NCOs and other ranks and can be identified as either Royal Corps of Sappers and Miners (up to 1856) or from 1856 the Royal Engineers.

During the Crimean War the British Army recruited German and Swiss Legion's under a special provision known as the Enlistment of Foreigners Act 1854. A total of 14,000 men were recruited into the British Foreign Legion and the service records are kept in WO 14 along with the muster lists of those British soldiers who went to the Scutari depot.

DESCRIPTION BOOKS

Another unique source are the Description Books that give more information that includes, for each soldier, age birthplace, trade and service. Again you need to know the name of the Regiment. The soldiers names are arranged alphabetically for the period 1756 to the mid 19th century and you can find these in WO 25 in pieces 266 to 688. Note: officially description books are available to 1900 though few of them remain for the latter half of the 19th century.

Finally, the really good news is that the Public Record Office has now placed detailed explanatory leaflets on-line on the web, and here are some links to the best.