Major update of UK, WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923 on Ancestry

Sourced from the Western Front Association, this collection provides details of UK military and military-related personnel, who filed for a pension after World War One.

The update, "Other Ranks Died", approximately one million cards, relates to pensions claimed from the British Ministry of Pensions for 'other ranks' (not officers) who were killed or died in the Great War.

This constitutes a full set of records and has not been subject to any weeding (as has been the case in other records preserved by the Ministry of Defence). Therefore a card should exist for every soldier, sailor or airman who died in the war provided his next of kin claimed a pension. If there was no pension claim, no card will exist.

They enable the identification of individual servicemen via reference to either (1) his dependent/next of kin (for example wife/parents) and/or (2) a home address. Therefore, for servicemen with common names (for example Smith and Jones) researchers can now identify the relative they are looking for, as these extra details will give certainty where none existed with other archived records, such as the Medal Index Cards.

The information on Ancestry is a transcript with some additional information available through a link to an image of the original on subscription site Fold 3.

Pensions of men who survived the conflict will be part of a later release.