"Forces War Records is the definitive location for military genealogy records online. The database includes records from WW2, WW1, the Boer War, the Crimean War and beyond. It is the only online database which now includes over 4 million military records of British Armed Forces personnel exclusively cross matched with over 4000 Regiments, Bases and Ships of the British Armed Forces going back to before 1350."The site is well organized. You can perform a free search using first and/or last names and record type (war). Results returned also indicate the rank and date of the record.
I found a Canadian WW1 serviceman so give it a try for other British Commonwealth country soldiers.
There's a helpful military genealogy tutorial.
I searched for any with my maiden surname in both the first and second world wars and only came up with about seven hits - none of them being my grandfathers, my dad or any of my uncles that served. They enlisted in Britain and Canada so they obviously haven't got a lot of records yet for those countries.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this source, looks like a lot of great study time.
ReplyDeleteBEWARE! The first name and the rank might be incorrectly interchanged in the record. I could not find Benoit Bender until I searched for Bender with the first name unspecified, which gave this result:
ReplyDelete"First Name Surname Rank Date
Lieutenant Bender Benoit 1793"
I'm guessing if a name was transversed it will because the source material they have used is equally incorrect.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you let them know about it perhaps it might be a simple table error in the dsiplaying program perhaps?
I think they now claim 5 million records so there are obviously a lot of records, but for certain surnames possibly not: still the basic search is free so it gives you a fair idea.