Complete Guide To Family History Research
MILITARY RESEARCH
When Researching for your Ancestors Military Records there are a few main pieces of information that you require and should help make your search a bit easier.
- Full name of the individual. If you have as full a name as possible as this will make tracking your individual easier. E.g. John Brown. There must be hundreds of John Browns. If you have a middle name it will make things a bit easier. E.g. John W Brown.
- The Service in which he served. Army, Royal Navy or Air Force.
- Rank and Regiment or Naval Ship or Squadron. Having the service number can be particularly helpful.
- Find out when the person served; pre First World War, First World War and after 1920.
- The more details you have the better. Even the Enlistment date and Demob dates are helpful as well.
ARMY
Pre WW1 and up to 1920
Pre WW1 and records up to 1920 are held at the National Archives in Kew, London and available to view there. Some records have been copied and uploaded onto Ancestry.com. Also available online with Ancestry are copies of WW1 medal cards. These medal cards are also available to download from National Archives - Documents Online. These cost £3.50. There are help guides on the National Archives site that explain in detail how to read the cards.
1921 to the present. To access the records of soldiers who served after 1920:
For ex-servicemen wishing to obtain their Service Records they can apply here:
Army Personnel Centre,
Disclosure 2,
Mail Point 515,
Kentigern House,
65 Brown Street,
Glasgow,
G2 8EX
Tel: 0845 600 9663
For relatives wishing to obtain Service Records of Deceased soldiers they must apply here:
Army Personnel Centre,
Historical Disclosures,
Mail Point 555,
Kentigern House,
65 Brown Street,
Glasgow,
G2 8EX.
A widow or widower can obtain a search for their late spouses Service records free of charge, where as for any other family member there is a charge of
£30. These searches much be accompanied by a Kinship form and a Search Document. Full details of how to go about this procedure can be found on this website.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/army.html
NAVT
Here are some facts that might help in you eventually tracking your airman:
1. Knowing if the man was an officer or rating. If the man was an officer you should find his name in the Navy List.
2. Before 1860 it is important to know the name of a ship that the person you are looking for, served on in the case of sailors, and which company or division a marine
served in.
3. Nearly all of the records of service for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines from 1860-1923 survive, unlike the army. Before 1860, the records whilst very thorough, they
do not always contain the records of the person you are looking for.
4. The admiralty records are arranged according to when an individual joined, but not always. The records of Royal Navy ratings, from 1873, are arranged by service number.
5. There are name indexes for most of the records of service in the admiralty records, except in the most unusual cases.
6. If you have any medals awarded to a member of the Royal Navy or Royal Marines, you can use these to indicate at which time the individual served in but more importantly,
they are usually named with the recipient’s details, either on the back or around the edge.
The following records have been moved to the National Archive (formerly the Public Record Office) and are available for public access:
1. Royal Navy Officers commissioned prior to 1914
2. Royal Navy Ratings who enlisted prior to 1924.
3. First World War records for the Women's Royal Naval Service.
4. Royal Marine Officers commissioned prior to 1926
5. Royal Marine Other Ranks that enlisted prior to 1926
WWI
Records of 50,000 men who served during WW1 are available to search and download from the National Archives Documents Online. Documents-Royal Naval Division.
After WW1
Before 1972 Royal Naval personnel were given their service records on discharge. Only pay details were kept for Pension purposes. Therefore the only
information held on RN personnel who served prior to 1972 is their Service details (number, rank, name etc) and a list of dates and ships/shore bases. As with Army searches there
must be a Search Document and a Certificate of Kinship supplied along with a fee, these are available for download from this website.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/royal_navy.html. The address to send the applications to is:
RN Disclosures Cell
Room 48
West Battery
Whale Island
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO2 8DX
Telephone: 02392 628779/ 02392 628781
ROYAL AIR FORCE
Records of Air Force officers serving before 1922 and for Airman serving before 1924 are held at The National Archives. Records for Airmen and Officers serving after these dates are held by the RAF. These records are retained by Service Number, Rank and Full Name, and will also contain the Date of Birth. It is important that as much information as possible can be provided in order to locate the correct record.
For current and former airmen a search document must be completed or in the case of family members of deceased airmen a completed search document and, a
Certificate of Kinship must accompany along with the appropriate fee. These forms can be downloaded from this site and the address as to where to send them is also given.
http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/raf.html.
Written By Ancestry Aid Member: Raven