Genealogy Chat

Hi Tony, My gt.grandfather was in Chelsea Barracks on 1891 census. He was in the Coldstream guards. I googled this and found an e mail for the regiment archivist. This was a couple of years ago. I could have applied for his army records. No guarantee what I would have got but from memory it was £20/25 and could have taken a fair amount of time. In the end I didn't bother as I had a fair bit of his info already. Diane

Hi I'm a puzzle-addict... which is how I come to be a genealogy-addict! It's also why I don't mind having a go at other people's puzzles, but it certainly isn't obvious where you could go with this one. If I have any inspirations, I'll try to remember to come back to the thread & let you know. Christine

Hi Christine, You've gone to a lot of trouble to help me out by doing those searches on my behalf. Many thanks for that. I had actually found the one for the Grenadier Guards and have downloaded the file for that. It doesn't give me much to go on in terms of clarifying who the Arthur Dawson is though, sadly. I did my own search with the keyword "Guards" - as I discovered that all the Soldiers earlier in the 1901 Census return for the Barracks were either in the "Grenadiers", "Coldstream" or "Irish" Guard regiments. (Arthur was unfortunately on one of the later pages where someone had gotten lazy and could no longer be bothered to denote what regiment individuals were in - they were all just designated "Soldier"!) I had presumed, from the presence of the Medal Card under Arthur Dawson that he was most likely in the Grenadiers. One of the bits of information off the medal cards were suggestive that a date for enlistment for Arthur was 1911 or 1917 (unclear)... which doesn't tie up with Arthur's presence in Chelsea Barracks as early as 1901 - unless of course he was discharged and then enlisted again sometime after 1901. Not being familiar with enlistments and army careers of that day, I'm just unsure. Someone has kindly replied directly and advised that I could write to the current HQ of the Coldstream Guards; for if Arthur was from Yorkshire there is a good chance he was assigned to that regiment. However, if he could have been in the Grenadiers instead - not sure where to go for that. Wish I knew more of what to do and where to find information for Army personnel! :-o - Tony.

Hi the national archives http://www(.nationalarchives(.)gov(.)uk/militaryhistory/ have some info. On the page this link goes to under exhibitons and guides theres a link to Index of research guides to help you search our catalogue and then there's a 'Topics to Research' with a drop down list and you can select army from there hope this helps cheers H

From the info you've mentioned I can't tell his age, but there are these two on Docs Online: 1914-1920 WO 372/5 (both on same ref, so if he is one of them but you don't know which, it doesn't matter because you get both!). Medal card of Dawson, Arthur I Corps: 3rd Dragoon Guards Regiment No: 7001 Rank: Private... Medal card of Dawson, Arthur Corps: Grenadier Guards Regiment No: 28787 Rank: Private Otherwise, have you tried the thread-search here using military words like "soldier" and "army" to see if there are any useful tips on other threads? Christine

Aha! That's great information in itself. Even knowing a regiment is a good result to relate to the rest of my family who are as curious as me as to what happened to him. Of course, I'm open to any other advice as to how I might trace further details of what might have happened to Arthur. :-) Many thanks, - Tony.

Ive looked on ancestry and it seems to be the Coldstream Guards and the Irish Guards(from the front page) There are 86 pages for the Barracks and on the first ones,it says which regiment they are in but on the later ones,it just says soldier Sorry I cant be of more help Anna :-)

You may find that the regiment is listed at the beginning of the folio. I think you may need to look a few pages before the page your ancestor is on and see if the regiment is mention.

Hi, I have recently managed to trace a missing sibling from a previous generation to Chelsea Barracks in the 1901 Census. Sadly, all that is available on the Census return sheet is a list of individuals "Forename, Surname - Soldier - Hometown". The one I am interested in is: Arthur Dawson, Soldier, Parkgate, Yorkshire. There is no indication as to service numbers or what regiment they were attached to. Does anyone have any advice as to where I can go from here in trying to trace what happened to this relative? I've scoured around to see if he was involved in the Boer War (Kevin Asplin Site), but his name is not listed (only an Arthur Frank Dawson) - and I'm certain my Arthur didn't have a middle name. Also looked elsewhere to try and find which regiments might have been in Chelsea Barracks for the 1901 Census - but not getting very far. Would welcome any advice from anyone experience in this kind of search. - being a relative newcome to Genealogy myself! Best regards, - Tony.