Army Records

Ancestors in the army is another common feature of family trees especially during males at time of the many wars in the Victorian age plus of course the two World Wars when a significant percentage of men fought for Sovereign and Country.

Fortunately for us the Army quickly established a bureaucracy that required vast amounts of paperwork much of which still survives although bombing and fires has destroyed some of the records.

Whilst there are many and varied records available the most useful to family historians is the personal service record which contains details of enrollment, service, postings,promotion, illness, discipline, medals etc.

Where can I find details of Army Service records ?

Service records of Soldiers up to 1920 are held by the National Archives and available online at Ancestry.

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Records relating to soldiers who served after this are held by the Ministry of Defence Historic Disclosure Unit in Glasgow .There are issues of data protection in getting information that require the consent of the next of kin before information is released.

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The Army List has been  published annually since 1754 containing a list of all serving Officers in the Army.

The list indicates Rank , full name and date of attaining that rank.

Copies of the lists are available at many large libraries, military museums.

Copies of the list are also available from commercial firms on CD.

Google Books has copies of several of the lists from the 1800's available free of charge by searching it's site.

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Forces Reunited is an website run by ex servicemen for ex servicemen and is able not only to put old comrades in touch with each other but to provide a great reservoir of knowledge on things army via its forums.

Medals

Campaign medals are given to soldiers who took part in any recognised campaign.

These are recorded in the soldiers personal service record and in specific campaign medal databases available on commercial sites such as Ancestry.

Gallantry medals were awarded top soldiers for feats of valour.

Awards of these medals will appear in the personal service records but they would also have been published in the London Gazette and local or national newspapers.

The London gazette published the names, rank , regiment and citation for all gallantry medals awarded.

There is a searchable database for these citations.

Casualty Records

To honour those who gave their lives for the country records exist of all soldiers killed in the two world wars.

These records are maintained online by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Other casualty records are harder to find as  they appear in small specific sites or do not exist online.

The best way to find them is to search online for the Regiment or for the conflict and follow links.

Which Regiment?

Not sure what regiment your ancestor was in but you have a photo of him in uniform.

Military badges is a useful website with pictures of the badges from virtually all UK Regiments.

If the badge is not large enough to read in the photo try this trick- Highlight the badge and scan the photo in a high resolution.

This should bring the badge up large enough to recognise.

The above information hasn't helped!

The Army Museums Ogilby Trust website offers much more detailed information in tracing army ancestors.