Genealogy Chat

my husband has asked me to try and find his fathers war records. What is the best way to go about this.His father died back in 1969. He has been told so many stories about his fathers time in the war. From being listed as missing and being injured.Would i need to apply for a death cert for my father in law .Some body told me to try ancestory would i find out much info if i registed with them

Ancestry is highly unlikley to have WW2 UK soldiers records, although they do have US ones.

This is the link you need to order your father -in- laws military records. If his widow applies, there is no charge, other wise it cost £30.

http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/service_records.html

The forms need careful reading to decide if its cost effect

Edit - "Unless the individual died in Service, you are required to provide a copy of a death certificate as proof of death before a request can be accepted"....unless 'you' (OH) are his widow, parent, or applying with their consent

You will need your dad's d.cert. If you don't already have access to this, you can buy a copy thru:
http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/

Normally, one looks up the details for ordering via
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
However, in this case, a search is unlikely to be successful as very few 1969 records have been transcribed.
You should instead use the view images link to verify the details. It's a klunky interface, but it's free.

I would first do a free search on Ancestry - I think you need an old style search to get the shopping basket.
Go to http://www.ancestry.co.uk/
From the main menu bar, select Search - Search all records.
The old/new style switch appears at far right, just under the main menu bar.
Now from main menu bar - Search - BMDs incl parish
One of the "Featured Titles in this Category" is "England & Wales, BMD Index"
Click on that, then on "Deaths 1916 - 2005 (transcribed)"
Check "Exact matches only" at top left of search screen, then enter his first and last name and 1969.

You'll get a number of hits, e.g.,
View Record John Smith year info 1969 city Kent
View Record John Smith year info 1969 city Warwickshire
View Record John Smith year info 1969 city Kent

If you click on the shopping basket, you'll see some details, usually incl the quarter, district, vol and page #
(So the first Kent was 1969q1 Dover, and the 2nd Kent was 1969q1 Folkestone)
Anyways, once you think you've confirmed the quarter, I would then use FreeBMD to view the image.
The index has some details you won't see for free on Ancestry, in particular, the age or date of birth.
(They only started putting dob in the index in 1969q2 - incidentally, it's only the dob as told by the informant, so I would expect the actual birthday to be correct, but the year might be a bit off.)
One has a few days to rego a death - I forget how many - at most a week.
This usually doesn't matter with deaths, but these quarterly indexes go by quarter of registration, not the quarter the death occurred in.
This might matter if he died march 29, say - he could be in either 1969q1 or 1969q2 in this case.

NB After you've noted the details, close the shopping basket's form window.
I would **not** use the form to order the d.cert - having Ancestry (or any other firm) place the order for you will more than double the cost to you.

Or just ask on here for the gro index number ;-)

GR might have it on their BMD, if you have a suitable sub.

That's an interesting way of getting the details for free, mgnv, and worth considering for people who wish to find the reference for themselves

You could search

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/

and see if he is mentioned as being in receipt of a medal, as long as he had a unique name.

One thing you need to be aware of is that his army records will (unless something exceptonal happened) contain very little other than his entry papers, medical papers and posting places and dates, and any disciplinary notes and if you are lucky a character letter by his senior officer written on discharge.

They will not tell you what he or his regiement actually did . For this information you need to see the Regimental Diaries. Copies of these are kept mainly at the National Archives at Kew. Some are held within the archives at the Imperial War Museum and some are kept in Regimental Museums.

And when ordering his records from Glasgow they can take up to 10 months to be sent out. This is advised when ordering.