Genealogy For Your UK Ancestors In World War I

Image courtesy of National Army Museum

Have you been curious about your UK ancestors in World War I? Have you found it difficult to find more information about them? In this article, we'll give you some genealogy research tips to help you discover more about your UK ancestors.

How did WWI affect your UK ancestors?  

For many genealogists and family historians, the First World War was an integral part of research our ancestors’ lives especially if you have British ancestors.  By the end of the war, almost 25% of the British male population had joined up. As a result, every family was impacted in one way or another even before you get to the civilian and local impact of the war.  

Researching Your UK Army Ancestors

Lord Kitchener’s “Your County Needs You” campaign ran shortly after war broke out and saw over a million men enlisting. Mounting casualties meant conscription was necessary by January 1916. Conscription was imposed on all single men aged between 18 and 41, with a few exemptions for the medically unfit, conscientious objectors and certain occupations.  Conscription was extended in May 1916 to include married men and in 1918 the age limit rose to 51.   

Detailed ‘attestation’ records were completed on enlisted, recording birthplaces, occupations, addresses, physical descriptions and next of kin.  Attached to these were meticulous records of where and when a person served, and any injuries sustained.   

Unfortunately, the records of the approximately 6.5million men who served in the British Army were stored in London.  Devastatingly for anyone seeking their ancestor’s records, this repository was hit in the Blitz in 1940 and approximately two-thirds of the soldiers’ service records were destroyed.  The surviving records were partly charred, or water damaged from when the fire was extinguished making many illegible or hard to read at best.   

Nearly all soldiers who served abroad were awarded at least one medal for service. The three main campaign medals were nicknamed ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’ after a popular comic strip at the time.   

The Medal Rolls Indexes contain some 4.8 million records and are thought to cover about 90% of all soldiers’ names.  Regretfully if your soldier only served at home, he was not eligible.  The biggest draw back to the index cards are the minimal detail recorded meaning they can be very difficult to definitively connect to individuals.  Often the first name is just an initial, so if you were seeking your great granduncle Albert Smith as I am, trying to work out which A. Smith might be him, is a needle in a haystack. 

Disability pension records have survived, however (almost always) only those soldiers discharged before the end of the war were eligible for the pension and they had to show suitable injuries to qualify.   

Perversely, as a genealogist and family historian, the most ‘sure-fire’ way of identifying a soldier was if he died.  All serving military personnel were asked to complete a will (although many simply left everything to their parent or spouse).  They are, however, held separately by the four nations.   Additionally the the casualty lists and rolls of honour together with registers of soldiers’ effects are detailed and comprehensive.   

Large digitization projects have made many of these records available online and searcheable on the main commercial websites of Ancestry, FindmyPast and Fold3. However if you don’t know which battalion your ancestor belonged to, and the name being searched for is common (in my case my great-grandfather Patrick Doyle), it can be very difficult to locate the correct records with any certainty.  Early in the war men enlisted with friends and many were kept together as it was thought if they would fight harder if so. 

Similarly, workmates signed up together and websites such as the Scottish Miners and the railways collated records and memorialised those who served. Consider what regiments were ‘local’ to your ancestor, perhaps check any marriages during the war, or birth records for children born during the war as they may give hints as to what regiment was served in. 

Whilst you may not locate your ancestors’ service record, the Battalion War Diaries can provide extensive information about what the service of an ancestor looked like.  This can be particularly informative if a family member died or was injured and their casualty record only says they died and only generally where.

My great granduncle Edward died in the early days of the war and being a private meant no particular record was kept of how he died.  Tracing his regiment’s War Diary for the date helped give context to the skirmishes encountered on that day and where he may have died.  The Western Front Association and the Long, Long Trail are websites dedicated to the First World War and have helpful information on different battles, battlefields and much more.  Similarly the National Army Museum has details of each regiment and medals awarded. 

Although nowhere near the scale of the Second World War, some 8,000 British Officers were taken as Prisoners of War.  Their records can be searched although again the information available is limited to name, rank, regiment and date missing/repatriated.  Despite the horrors of war being better understood the databases of military deserters and court martial records can make difficult reading, but often contain considerable information about a soldier’s experiences. 

Consider being liberal with your search choices as transcriptions can be wrong and in some cases the soldier involved deliberately lied to the recruiter.  In my family my great-grandfather’s half-brother Thomas Doyle lied about his age to enlist. 

It is also worth remembering that time Ireland was a united island and part of Britain.  The Irish War of Independence was fought between 1919 and 1921 and it was not until 1922 that the island split in two.  Over 200,000 men from the combined island of Ireland served in the British military in the First World War with around 35,000 losing their lives to it.  Separate lists for Irish casualties are held and websites such as Irelands Great War Dead are an ongoing effort to record those who died from Ireland. 

Image courtesy of Imperial War Museums

Finding Ancestors In Other Branches of the UK Military 

Of course, the Army is just one of the arms of the military.  Service records for the Royal Navy and Marines are online at The National Archives.  With over 500 Royal Navy ships were lost at sea with almost 45,000 sailors dying, again the commemorative rolls are a vital source of information. The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service operated until 1 April 1918 when they combined to become the Royal Air Force. Officer service records and air force lists are available  on the commercial websites as well as at the National Archives.  The RCF and RAF combat reports are held by the Imperial War Museum.     

Although comparatively few, each of the major branches of the military recruited women to relieve men for the front lines.  Over 50,000 records of the Officers in the Women’s Royal Navy Service, the Women’s Royal Air Force and Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps have been digitised and are online.   

Awards given for gallantry or actions and promotions were often reported in the newspapers, as were lists of those who initially signed up designed to stoke the fervour and patriotism of their readership.  Similarly, stories that would particularly pull at the heart strings, whilst also encouraging support for the war, made headlines.  On 16 December 1914, the German Navy bombarded Hartlepool and attacked Scarborough and Whitby.  Hundreds of civilians died and the details were extensively covered in the newspapers including photos of children killed.  Reports can then follow up with soldiers released from service due to the impact of such events.  So consider a trawl of newspapers local to the soldier you were seeking. 

Other Sources To Find Your UK Ancestors in WWI

After the war ended graves were scattered throughout all regions where fighting had occurred and, in some cases, soldiers still lay unburied in areas of the heaviest fighting.  The Commonwealth War Graves Commission was set up to commemorate those who died.  Part of their work included recovery of remains, identification and reburial.  Where possible the individual’s next of kin were contacted adding extra information to a soldier’s records.  Their wonderful website includes the other services and civilians across the commonwealth and can help where individuals were interred or memorialized.   

Another source for memorials can be found in local churches, village halls or village greens erected after the war to remember the dead.  These are best searched locally although the Imperial War Museum’s War Memorial Register allows you to search over 1.6 million names and 50,000 images from the UK’s War Memorials.  Another less used resource is that of the In Flanders Fields Museum which is seeking to collect the stories of the more than 600,000 who died in Belgium. 

Founded in 1917 The Imperial War Museum (IWM) has been building collections to illustrate and record all aspects of conflict in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.  From life in the trenches to the Christmas Truce of 1914 to research into major battles it has collected photographs, letters and interviews providing firsthand reports of what our ancestors experienced. The Museum then continued to collect stories and objects holding some 11 million photographs, over 155,000 physical objects over 33,000 recordings and over 23,000 hours of films which help put into context and help explain the impact of war. 

In addition, and as part of the centenary commemorations of the war, the IWM launched its Lives of the First World War project which allows you to explore millions of personal stories, often accompanied by images.   

Should you need assistance in your search for British families affected by the war, please do contact us, we’d be delighted to help.