Genealogy Chat

Hi Please could someone tell me what details are on the records if you down load a medal card for WW1 thank you Margaret

Name, Rank, regiments that they served in, the medals they were awarded and if they entered a theatre of war then the code for this is given...Sometimes you might find other information such as date discharged etc.

thank you so do you get the name of their next of kin at all. Margaret

No nothing like that im afraid. The WFA have started a service for £5 where they scan the front and rear of the medal cards, sometimes there is an address or other bits, but I think the figure this applies to is about 5%. The address is: WFA, P.O. Box 1918, Stockport, SK4 4WN. If you want next of kin, then it should be on his service papers...But less than 1/3 of these survived a fire in 1940...These are stored on microfilm at The National Archives in Kew. But if you like close to a family history centre www.familysearch.org then you can for a few pounds order the film in that you want.

I didn't know the LDS had filmed WW1 service records - that's interesting. What are they listed under in the catalogue?

2 sec mary I will have a look

The series title is Military records of the British Army, 1914-1920 The blurb about the series: These records are referred to as the 'Burnt Documents'. About 70 per cent of these records were destroyed during the Blitz in World War II. Many of the remaining records were badly damaged, but most can be read. Many documents are filed out of order. Stray documents often appear in the middle of totally unrelated files. A second collection of these records was acquired from the Ministry of Pensions. These records represent about 8 per cent of the enlisted men serving during this time. They are cataloged in a separate entry which lists 4946 rolls of microfilm. There is also a third collection of these records. These are files which had been removed from the main collection and had not been returned. These records appear in a separate entry (WO364). There are also records of women who served in the Army Auxiliary Corps. These records appear in a separate entry (WO 398). So these reels are just for the WO 363 range (burnt files) and does not cover WO 364 pension files.

Brilliant, thanks very much - I'd spent about 10 minutes searching the catalogue, and didn't find that. Pity so few records survived, though.