depaor01 Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 Good morning all, Some time ago a member gave me a nifty way of using the NA's search facility to overcome Ancestry's abysmal search facility when looking for War Diaries there. The method is: Locate the diary in the NA site. Get the WO 95 number Extract the number after the WO95 bit of that numger Go to Ancestry Search the Ancestry War Diaries in "Keyword" field, exact, using the extracted bit of the WO number. This provides a list which you need to further interrogate because diaries are randomly bundled and fragmented. My problem is that I've spent hours trying this method to locate the 56th Siege Battery's War Diary to find the action in which a local man 281256 William Carroll was killed. The date of the diary is 10th November 1917. It exists in the NA as "Ref WO 95/388/8, Army Troops. 56 Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery, 1917 July - 1918 Jan". However putting 388/8 or 388 or Royal Garrison Artillery or 56 in Ancestry produces zero results. If anyone could dig me out of this quagmire I'd be eternally grateful. Thanks, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 Dave- I picked up the 4-figure reference tip as well-and it has helped. But Ancestry still seem determined to defeat me on every other war diary look-up-so I have to save my list of "failures" for visits to Kew. When TNA Discovery confirms a war diary exists, then it can be pretty irritating when the beast doesn't surface. Tends to be more for things like siege batteries as several units of war diary will be in the same TNA ref. The only thing that helps a bit further is not to be too precise on the exact date on the top line- Rather than search for exact date, exact month and then year, sometimes just putting the year only throws up the item. God knows why. Or,if not,then it gets you into the right war diary and you can just move backwards or forwards within it. Remember that the film frame miniatures at the bottom of the screen are an easy way to run forward or backward- Most photo frames have the war diary as "landscape" frames- while the front sheets for each month are in "portrait" format- so you can see where to jump. Works some of the time- but I wouldn't chuck away the bottle of sedative pills just yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ororkep Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 D If you have spent hours then for only £3 why not bite the bullet and use the NA site Was his Bty not 19 Sge anyhow? P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ss002d6252 Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 (edited) As far as I'm aware ancestry only bought a certain set of diaries, they've not purchased any of the subsequently digitised ones. If the diary didn't fall in amongst the purchased batch then you're out of luck. Craig Edited 13 January , 2017 by ss002d6252 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaureenE Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 The information given on the Ancestry page "UK, WWI War Diaries (France, Belgium and Germany), 1914-1920" is that the records are WO 95/1096–3948. http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=60779 Cheers Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depaor01 Posted 13 January , 2017 Author Share Posted 13 January , 2017 Dave- I picked up the 4-figure reference tip as well-and it has helped. But Ancestry still seem determined to defeat me on every other war diary look-up-so I have to save my list of "failures" for visits to Kew. When TNA Discovery confirms a war diary exists, then it can be pretty irritating when the beast doesn't surface. Tends to be more for things like siege batteries as several units of war diary will be in the same TNA ref. The only thing that helps a bit further is not to be too precise on the exact date on the top line- Rather than search for exact date, exact month and then year, sometimes just putting the year only throws up the item. God knows why. Or,if not,then it gets you into the right war diary and you can just move backwards or forwards within it. Remember that the film frame miniatures at the bottom of the screen are an easy way to run forward or backward- Most photo frames have the war diary as "landscape" frames- while the front sheets for each month are in "portrait" format- so you can see where to jump. Works some of the time- but I wouldn't chuck away the bottle of sedative pills just yet. Glad to hear it's not just me! I have used the frame method you describe, but it shouldn't be that hard! On 13/01/2017 at 12:19, ss002d6252 said: As far as I'm aware ancestry only bought a certain set of diaries, they've not purchased any of the subsequently digitised ones. If the diary didn't fall in amongst the purchased batch then you're out of luck. Craig Thanks for that Craig. I'd assumed all diary records on NA were also on Ancestry. Could explain my lack of success! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depaor01 Posted 13 January , 2017 Author Share Posted 13 January , 2017 3 hours ago, ororkep said: D If you have spent hours then for only £3 why not bite the bullet and use the NA site Was his Bty not 19 Sge anyhow? P Definitely 56 as per the medal rolls. I've spent hours because I am a stubborn old git with an Ancestry subscription who has to research several local casualties. Paying on the double doesn't sit easily with me. However if Craig is right and Ancestry's diary collection is incomplete I will certainly pay no problem. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David_Underdown Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 Ancestry only have war diaries up to Divisional level (in the France and Flanders theatre), so army troops won't appear there. A couple of quick ways to check: look at the bottom of the Discovery screen where it shows the hierarchy of the record, you'll see whether the piece (or item) you're looking at sits within the subseries for a division (will be on Ancestry) or corps/army/GHQ/lines of communication (won't be on ancestry); you can also look at the URL, if the last part is a C followed by 5 or 6 digits it will be on Ancestry, if it's a funny looking long string with a mixture of alphabetic characters a-f and numbers, with the odd hyphen in (technically speaking a version 4 UUID), it won't be on Ancestry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depaor01 Posted 13 January , 2017 Author Share Posted 13 January , 2017 Very informative. Thanks to all. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Clifton Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 3 hours ago, Maureene said: The information given on the Ancestry page "UK, WWI War Diaries (France, Belgium and Germany), 1914-1920" is that the records are WO 95/1096–3948. As David has pointed out, this batch covers precisely those units which were in Divisions in France. Corps and Army Troops are in 1 o 1095, L of C Troops are in 3949 to 4193, and theatres other than France are in 4194 to 5500. Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 My brain is hurting so much with all of this- I think I'll just use my "Old Git" Oystercard, zip down the transport network to Kew and give Ancestry the heave-ho if I can't find something in under 15 seconds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
depaor01 Posted 13 January , 2017 Author Share Posted 13 January , 2017 My brain is hurting so much with all of this- I think I'll just use my "Old Git" Oystercard, zip down the transport network to Kew and give Ancestry the heave-ho if I can't find something in under 15 seconds Give 'em one for me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ororkep Posted 13 January , 2017 Share Posted 13 January , 2017 (edited) Dave I will try again. I believe the roll is incorrect (it does happen) for numerous reasons which I wont go into here, and I now know CWGC is also incorrect re your man. You just need to re-examine your basic research on Ancestry that you would do for any KiA gunner and you will find the anomaly, therein lies the answer you seek! Rgds Paul Edited 13 January , 2017 by ororkep Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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