War Records

[welkram]

Strange subject to post on here but thought someone may be able to help or advise.

I'm looking for information on a relative of mine (some generations back) who was killed
in France in 1917. I have his army number, his company and regiment, the day he was
killed and where he is buried. I also have an eye witness report of death at the front in Arras
but the strange thing is that his grave is around 40km from where his death was reported.

I have looked for his records but the seem to be not available for me to view and frankly l
don't have time to persue this any longer.

I an aware there are companies that offer to help you with war records but in
most cases you have to do most of the work yourself.

Does anyone know of anyone that takes on this work, I'm sure they must be out there but
but they seem to be hiding from me.

[randyandy]

Hi Welkram

The grave may not be near the battlefield for a variety of reasons sadly.

A good start is

and a good site to put your relatives information on is:



With the information you have it may also be worth asking the experts / battlefield guides on things like Twitter (Paul Reed is excellent) and if you do a Google of Paul some other sites do come up.

If you know your relatives regiment, their museum (if they have one) usually has good information as well, including (in some cases) the war diaries.

There are loads of websites to go at (to many to list to be honest) but before you use the company option I'd try the above (especially Paul) first.

Hope it helps

Andy

[welkram]

Thanks Randy, that could be of help.

I did check with his regiment some years ago, and received a photo copy of the Regimental
war diary for the day he was killed and also the previous and post day, there was no actions recorded on any of these days.

However, they also said that deaths of enlisted men were not recorded,
only those of officers.

[Satyruk2000]

Any surviving records for your relative will now be held by the National Archives (TNA) at Kew.

Unfortunately, the War Office Repository in London was bombed in WW2 and a lot of the soldiers records were destroyed. Some were reconstructed from records held by other government departments. Officers records fared better but were weeded savagely post-WW2.

The surviving and reconstructed soldiers records are available on microfilm in the Reading Room at TNA. I don't think you need a reader's ticket to view them anymore.

Recently, I found a relative's record on TNA website. This is at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/. You may find something there. Alternatively, TNA has a list of people who offer themselves as researchers and who will (doubtless for a fee) hunt down whatever details they can find of your relative. You can search the list of independent researchers at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help ... searchers/ . Alternatively, TNA may do some research for you but for a fee. See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help ... h-service/ .

If I remember correctly, war diaries--as you correctly state--name the officers when they became casualties but not the soldiers.

I speculate that your relative's grave may be a distance from where he was killed either because some smaller cemeteries were consolidated into larger ones post war (although 40 miles seems a bit of a distance for that to be the answer). Alternatively, he may not have been killed outright but seriously injured then evacuated to the battalion aid post, the rearwards towards a base hospital where he would have been buried if he'd died.

Best of luck with this one.

[Satyruk2000]

Ooops sorry, please amend Reading Room to Search Room as the location of the soldiers records microfilm. You don't need a reader's ticket to go to the Search Room but you do for the Reading Room (where original documents are produced and viewed).