Genealogy Chat

Can anyone recommend a good site etc where I can check if my Scottish ancestors served in WW1 & WW2?

In Australia we have nominal roles where you can check if someone was in the Army, Navy or Air force during these times. They also state if a person was deceased, missing in action etc and give you details of next of kin, service number, date enlisted, date discharged, rank etc.

I am not sure if the UK has any particular place I can search and I would like to see if any of my family served in either wars. I know that when part of them emigrated to Australia all of the men in the family enlisted in WW1.

Ancestry has not been much help, and when I do Google searches I end up on sites in which to have to purchase lists or memorabilia etc.

Does anyone have idea good places they have used?

Cheers

Rachelle

Have you looked at http://www.cwgc.org/ - obviously commonwealth includes Oz, so you should find all your fallen here.

WW1 is, in principal, accessible. Ancestry has images of the medal cards from the NA at Kew, as well as service and pension records. They haven't completed indexing the service records - they're up to N, but the real snag is that 70+% of the records got burnt during WW2. Australians (and Canadians) kept their own records, so at least some of your mob will have surviving records. The battalion WW1 War Diaries are online for Canada - I don't know the Aus situation - they are sometimes for the UK, but maybe you'll have to contact the appropriate Regimental Assoc/Museum. These WDs show, day by day, what the unit was doing. Bean's official history of the AIF is also available online somewhere.

WW1/2 service d.regos are avaiable on SP, I think, but they don't have much info beyond what you'll find on the CWGC site. You can look at some free examples of these "War returns" registers via the link at the foot of:
http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&404

Thank you so much, I'll check this out.

The Australia service records are fine, it was just for the family who remained in Glasgow.

Kind regards

Rachelle

There was a mention above of NA. This is The National Archives and a useful place to visit if you have not already done so.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Find the "Research and Learning" tab on the home page and click on "Research Guides". There are several that may be of interest.