Why military records are worth the hunt

Family history often stalls at the same point: a name, a date of birth and a place. Then you discover that great-grandfather served in the army, and suddenly there is a paper trail with texture — service numbers, physical descriptions, the towns he passed through, the campaigns he survived and the ailments that finally sent him home. Army records are among the richest sources available to British researchers, and they are unusually good at filling the gaps between census returns.

Start with the clues at home

Before you order anything from an archive, comb through the family's own holdings. Medals are the single most useful object you can find, because the rim is often impressed with a name, service number and regiment. Photographs are equally revealing: shoulder titles, cap badges and the cut of a tunic narrow down both unit and period. Ask older relatives about nicknames, tattoos, accents and the stories that were told and retold at family gatherings. Even a garbled tale about "the war in Egypt" gives you somewhere to look.

Note anything that distinguishes a common name. A middle initial, or a trade such as shoemaker or carter recorded on a service paper, can separate your John Evans from the other twenty.

Service records: where to look first

For soldiers who served before the First World War, the key collection is the discharge papers held at The National Archives in Kew, catalogued as WO 97. These cover men discharged between 1760 and 1913 and are indexed by name, so they are straightforward to search. Many are digitised and viewable through the large genealogy websites, or free on site at Kew.

First World War soldiers' papers survive in two series, WO 363 and WO 364. Around two-thirds of the originals were destroyed by bombing in 1940, so only about one man in three has a surviving record — searchable under the nickname "the burnt documents". Do not assume a missing file means no service. There are other ways in, and some men appear only in pension records or medal rolls.

Officers are recorded separately, in WO 374 and related series, and their files often include application forms, references and correspondence in their own handwriting.

Medal rolls and campaign medals

Medal rolls are the great fallback when service papers are missing. They confirm a man's regiment, service number and the campaigns he qualified for, and they have survived far more completely than personal files. Look for:

• First World War medals — the 1914 or 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, known together as the "trio".
• Boer War rolls — Queen's and King's South Africa Medals, which often list the unit and a clasp for a specific action.
• Long Service and Good Conduct Medals — useful for career soldiers who never went overseas.
• Gallantry awards — recommendations and citations can describe the deed itself in vivid detail.

Each roll tells you which regiment to search next, and the clasp on a medal can pinpoint a man to a particular battle or deployment.

Regimental museums and war diaries

Once you know the regiment and battalion, the record opens up. Regimental museums across the country hold enlistment books, photograph albums, journals and personal papers that were never sent to a national archive. Their volunteers are often extraordinarily knowledgeable and will gladly check a name against their own indexes for the price of a stamped envelope.

For the First World War, battalion war diaries record daily movements and dispositions. Read one for the month your ancestor was wounded and you may find the very action described, with officers and casualties annotated in the margin.

Reading the record like a researcher

Military documents are dense with abbreviations, and the temptation is to skim. Slow down. A few common ones repay attention:

• "Pte", "Sgt", "L/Cpl" — rank at the time of the entry, which may change from page to page.
• "BEF" — British Expeditionary Force, meaning service in France or Flanders.
• "Disch. on S.D." — discharged on the termination of his period of service.
• "SWB" — Silver War Badge, issued to men honourably discharged through sickness or wounds, and separately indexed.

Medical notes deserve particular care. A soldier's conduct sheet, illness record and final medical board can reveal old injuries, childhood complaints and the circumstances that ended his career — details that never reach a census.

Following the man, not just the soldier

Finish by reconnecting the service to the rest of the life. A discharge address may be a street you can trace in a later directory. A pension payment book confirms a marriage or a death date. A Chelsea Hospital admission paper often gives a wife's name and the ages of the children. The army, in other words, recorded precisely the information the civilian state overlooked.

Be patient with spelling. Names were written as they sounded, and a clerk who heard "Sellars" may have written "Sellers", "Sellars" or "Sellors" in the same file. Search the variants, check neighbouring entries, and trust the service number above all — it is the one thing a soldier carried with him and rarely changed.