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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

NA Records


David B

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What is the correlation between records known as the "Burnt"series and records held by the NA.

Does the NA hold a duplicate copy of these burnt records or it is a fact that the record of men lost in the

burning are lost for ever ? I presume that the records that are held by the NA are listed somewhere in the

NA web site.

A point in question is the recent release of Air officers records. Are these duplicate copies of originals or where

these records lucky enough to escape destruction in 1940.

I assume, that from time to time more of these gems will be digitized and be able to be seen but us öut of towners

"David

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David, as I understand it, the "burnt records" are all that remain of the service records for other ranks' whose service ended in or before 1920 and are a small proportion of the whole. They are fragile and many are water-damaged so the NA would not allow anyone to see the originals but an agreement was made to digitise those that were at all legible. The digitisation was done in association with Ancestry, hence they are available through that organisation but they are also available free to visitors to the NA itself, as are all such records, e.g. the 1911 census. I haven't accessed them myself but if they work like the 1911 census you log into the associate company's website using a special log-in screen that by-passes the normal one.

Unfortunately, if the records are not on Ancestry and your man did not serve after 1920 - in which case they are with the MoD not with the NA - then they were burned and lost in the fire. Some men's records can be reconstructed from other paperwork, such as compensation applications, for which the men had to provide full evidence.

Keith

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Keith,

I take it that OR's records are the ones that were destroyed. Out of 7 rels only three survived. (Fortunately for me the ones I was most interested in).

Understand therefore, that for example officers records were in a different repository in 1940 and survived. Once again, with the advent of NA digitization

have been able to access an officers record (RAF) of which I was interested.

Cheders David

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I have no idea about officers' records, David, so can't comment. I'm sure that other, more knowledgeable people will be along very soon to dispel the clouds of doubt! :)

Keith

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Thank you Jim, I find as I get older the time lag gets longer and now Olf Father is looking over my shoulder. Of seven serving rels in the GW, 2 records are intact, 1 badly

burnt and the other missing entirely, which agrees roughly with the percentage surviving.

However I still don't know what happened to the Navy/Airforce and officers records. Did these survive in their entirety.

David

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So now that the 'burnt' series, pension records and most Medal Index Cards are on line, what next?

Is someone lined up to do the Officers records?

A lot of gunners from the battery I'm researching went home for commissions meaning that their records are not in the other series.

We have the Times casualty lists - could someone be convinced of the value of scanning the official casualty lists - possible the last major source to give us names from 1917-18? Surely not a huge job (realtively speaking).

Did I read somewhere that did MoD are considering service records for persons born before a certain date - 100 years ago. THat would clean out the rest of the service records. Surely 10% of servicemen in WW1 continued in service?

Mark

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The Times casualty lists are already online, but can only be accessed via subscribing libraries and academic institutions. I use them daily. A fantastic resource.

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Regarding Officer's records we found them listed in WO339 and the officer's name in the search on the National Archives website. On our first visit to the NA a couple o weeks ago I was able to photograph the contents of the two oficers I was interested in. I believe RAF Officers records have just been digitised and are downloadable from the NA website at £3.50 a go.

John

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As the Times is online (I presume) the casualty lists would be obtainable directly from the horses mouth as it were. A bit slow, that I concede, but if you know the approximate

casualty date, search would be narrowed considerably.

David

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You can search Times Online for any text, restricted to whatever date range you like. Rather like the London Gazette, the search uses optical character recognition, which can be a bit iffy. When you see the dense lists of names, in tiny print, you will appreciate why. I find the man's number more likely to find him than his name. It is a sobering experience indeed to see these lists.

I should also add that there are mini biographies of many officers who are listed.

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I was under the impression that the Times Casualty Lists available online for all ranks are only 'complete' until mid-1917(ish) after which they stopped the reports of woundings etc. and then stopped ORs deaths at the end of that year. Is that not the case?

I was also under the impression that there were Official Casualty Lists for 1917 and 1918 available on microfilm at the British Library Newspaper repository at Colindale? Perhaps it would be useful to get these digitised? I've never seen one so don't know what it would entail or whether it's even possible.

Steve

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I was also under the impression that there were Official Casualty Lists for 1917 and 1918 available on microfilm at the British Library Newspaper repository at Colindale? Perhaps it would be useful to get these digitised? I've never seen one so don't know what it would entail or whether it's even possible.

Steve

Yes, see http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/n...ritmilhist.html

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Perfect ancestry project so - copying digitised material giving names of 100,000s of officers and men.

I have used the Times casualty list on line and it is a great source - gave me the only hard evidence I could find on my man from April 1917 listing his home town also to help confirm it is him and I used the other named casualties on the same list to find a likely RGA battery for him by searching CWGC and ancestry records.

post-6633-1258115968.jpg

Needless to say, finding it wasn't easy. The search engine didn't find it under 'McLoughlin', 'Enfield' or his service number '64278' When I search under '84278' it popped up - you need to think like a machine sometimes. Persistance pays off.

Apologies for highjacking the thread.

Mark

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Yes, it would definitely be useful to digitise the Official Casualty list for 1917-1919 currently at Colindale - especially seeing that Colindale will not be there much longer...

They are very similar to the Times lists, grouped by week (of publishing) and then by day.

Steve.

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