Ancestry - WW1 British Army Records - Free for 1 week - 7th to 14th November

[butterflymum]

...for those interested in family history, this is a great offer, and best of all no need to give credit/debit card details. Just log on if you have a current username and password (but no paid membership)....or register (for free).

Three sets of records will be available this week:

British Army World War 1 Service Records for 1914?1920
British Army " " " Pension Records for 1914-192
British Army " " " Medal Rolls Index Cards for 1914-1920

details of offer at:

Ancestry Military Offer

That was really interesting - thanks for the tip.

You are more than welcome......family history research is fascinating.....and WW1 service records can sometimes contain helpful insights to the person or give directions for further research (albeit sometimes they also contain very little, or do not exist at all, having been destroyed by fire).

See here for some helpful tips and explanation as to why some records no longer exist:

Guide to researching Service Records

Thank you for this. I found my grandfather's sign-up papers.

HJ.

Tried to find my family's WW1 records last year, but am I right in thinking they don't have Scottish ones?

They have Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh, Orlando..........but only those records that survived the fire damage and only for personnel who didn't continue in service beyond WW1.

OK, thanks butterflymum. Will have another look. I found myself going round in circles last year, but this thread's given me a boost to try again. Thanks

If you are still having problems, just shout for help or pop onto any family history forum and ask there for help. There are a few good ones around and most members are more than willing to help fellow researchers with searches that are proving difficult.

I have full Ancestry membership if anyone wants a hand looking for something :)

I think I have found a great-great uncle who fought in WW1 - does anyone know about the first few months of the war? - looks like he was discharged after only a month of service for medical reasons in October 1914 - is it really feasible he could have seen fighting in that short time? If it is the right relative the family story is he saw terrible things & suffered from shell-shock afterwards...

Thanks for the tip btw butterflymum!

Unfortunately the few of my ancestors who do have records, it looks like many of them have missing/destroyed records (unlikely they went on the serve in WW2).

I have one record for a brother which lists both his brothers with what looked like military designations on the sign up papers. I found one of the brothers, but not the other.

There are a few that I can't find any mention of. What occupations were considered to be important enough to skip the draft?

One of my friends has an ancestor that was a farm worker and managed to not get drafted because of that. I have an ancestor who was 23 yrs, married with no kids, but working as a railway signal man. Did railway workers get excluded from the draft as well?

Thank you OP.

I think it's possible that railway workers were exempt. Think my relatives were miners - I don't know if they volunteered or were drafted. Suspect the former...

When looking for one I found someone with the same name with letters in their file from an employer asking that they be exempt as needed for building hospitals at home