Find my past
Discover the new Royal Tank Corps Enlistment Records, 1919-1946, on find my past. This amazing collection is the largest set of Tank Corps records available online. Containing information about men who served in both WWI and WWII, the collection holds details of around 88,000 soldiers.
The records originally started life as the Heavy Section Machine Gun Corps before becoming the Royal Tank Corps in 1923. Early registers provide extraordinary detail, including prior service, trade, next of kin, children’s names, and discharge information.
At find my past you will find an extensive collection of military records to help you discover ancestors who served in WWI, WWII, and other conflicts, as well as army births, marriages, and deaths. You can also search a range of historical lists and roll calls dating from 1656 to 1994, including records for the Battle of Waterloo, Ships Lost at Sea, and the 1861 Worldwide Army Index.
www.findmypast.co.uk
FamilySearch International
FamilySearch International is a nonprofit family history organisation dedicated to connecting families across generations. It has spent more than 100 years actively seeking out and preserving records of historical and genealogical importance, including military records. FamilySearch offers free access to a large and growing collection of British military records, including, among others:
• Army soldiers’ documents (before 1882)
• World War I service files
• Officers’ records of service
• Army Lists 1740 to the present
• Regimental histories
• Continuous service engagement books
In addition to online access to military records, familysearch.org offers tools and resources to preserve and share family memories about ancestors that served in the military. Through photos, stories, and documents, users can create memorial pages to share with close and distant relatives to preserve in the FamilySearch archive.
www.familysearch.org
Forces War Records
Forces War Records, military genealogy specialists, have exclusively released the WWII Italian Prisoner of War Camp nominal rolls to search online. They are constantly searching for rare lists and updating their data, and this is the first time that records in this collection have been transcribed. Other exclusive collections include:
• British Jewry Book of Honour 1922
• Imperial prisoners of war held in Italy 1943
• Home Guard Officer Lists 1939-1945
• Home Guard Auxiliary Units 1939-1945
• List of Etonians who served in the War 1914-1919 and 1939-1945
• UK British & Commonwealth POWs Japanese camps 1939-1945
• Bomber/Fighter Command Losses 1939-1945
• London County Council War Service 1914-18
• Cambridge University war list 1914-1918
• Bomber Command Ruhr Offensive March–July 1943
• The Crimean War–Naval and Marines Medal Roll
• The India Medal (1895) Roll
• The Army of India Medal Roll 1799-1826
• The Kaffir Wars Medal Roll
• The South Africa Medal (1877) Roll
• The India General Service Medal (1854) Roll
• Serving personnel on the 1861 census
• 1870s Military Discharges
• Royal Artillery 1877-1881
• 2nd Afghan War 1878-80 Casualty Roll
www.forces-war-records.co.uk
The Society of Genealogists
The Society of Genealogists (SoG) is the UK’s largest family history society and runs the National Family History Centre. Its library in Clerkenwell contains everything a genealogist would expect to help them with their research, with free access to major commercial online genealogy sites and published reference materials.
The SoG holds an unrivalled collection of family histories and unique manuscript research notes and pedigrees. The reference collections relating to military history and soldier ancestors are excellent, with extensive runs of army lists, regimental histories, medal rolls. and biographies, as well as numerous family history and biographical research notes on military men.
The Society’s extensive education programme includes several talks and visits for anyone tracing their military ancestors.
Online, as part of the SoG’s website for members, is a database of information relating primarily to commissioned officers in the British Army and the pre-1947 Indian Army which is particularly useful for locating articles on soldiers that have appeared in some of the journals we hold.
www.sog.org.uk
To see this feature as it appeared in issue 41 of Military History Monthly, click here.
