Medal Rolls online, when?

[gnr.ktrha]

Hello,
I heard sometime ago that the WW1 medal rolls and more war diaries were being put on the NA website for download. Does anyone know when this going to start happening?
Cheers

[Guest]

Not sure if the medal rolls will appear on the National Archives?

Re the diaries Click

" Digitisation has now been completed and all diaries from the WO 95 series are now back in circulation. The digitised diaries will be launched online as soon as it is feasible before the centenary period begins, but at present we are unable to provide specific details - please keep watching our website for updates. "

There's a newsletter you can sign up to, that might be useful. No idea when they will actually go online, I check every day.

Cheers Mike

[gnr.ktrha]

Cheers Mike,
Are you coming to the WW1 event at AK Bell Library on Friday [9-13hrs]?
Regards,
Stewart

[Guest]

I hope to see you there Stewart.

Mike

[ss002d6252]

I did hear rumours that Ancestry were looking at digitising the rolls but I've heard nothing more.

Craig

[gnr.ktrha]

I have heard of some people going to Kew to look at the medal rolls, within the last year or so, only to discover that the rolls were unavailable because they were being photographed. I am sure they were told that the rolls were going to be added to the online database.
I wonder if it will be Ancestry or Documents Online [or what ever it is called now]?

[Andrew Hesketh]

Glad to hear that remaining war diaries have been done. I had a quote for one last week that isn't online yet at over £300! Cheeky beggars.

[yellow]

Just a slight correction to what has been said here in regards the war diaries.

From a NA Customer Advisor:

"We have recently completed scanning all the France and Flanders war diaries from series WO 95 and these will be available on Discovery before the centenary in 1914. We are hoping that other projects in the future will expand the coverage – I have no definite details to share at this time."

So it looks like we are going to have to wait for other theatres of war. Disappointed :-(.

[spof]

So it looks like we are going to have to wait for other theatres of war. Disappointed :-(.

And for anything above Divisional level on the WF. e.g. Army or Corps troops such as RA/RE/RAMC etc units.

I haven't had any trouble getting medal rolls and I'm not sure why Ancestry would digitise them all when for most family researchers, the MICs are adequate.It is really only serious researchers like us who'd want the rolls and Ancestry doesn't cater for us.

[yellow]

And for anything above Divisional level on the WF. e.g. Army or Corps troops such as RA/RE/RAMC etc units.

I haven't had any trouble getting medal rolls and I'm not sure why Ancestry would digitise them all when for most family researchers, the MICs are adequate.It is really only serious researchers like us who'd want the rolls and Ancestry doesn't cater for us.

The reason why so many medal researchers are keen to get their hands on the medal rolls is because many of the rolls list the Battalion an infantry soldier served with. This roll essentially makes tracing a soldier with destroyed service papers so much easier. MIC's rarely provide any clues as to the Battalions served and speculating in regards regimental number blocks can be a very inexact science.

If you wanted a medal roll entry from a professional researcher you would be looking at a charge of 7.50 + copying + postage. It is simply unaffordable to so many researchers.

What upsets me about the Medal Roll is that so many people get it confused with the Medal Index Cards. They are two entirely different record entities, which serve a purpose to provide very different information. Both should have a place on Ancestry IMO.

[Andrew Hesketh]

Very much agree with Yellow.

[spof]

So do I. I understand how important the medal rolls can be - I have over 100 of them photographed.

I'm just saying that for a lot of family history researchers, the MIC is enough for them. Anyone doing serious research is not Ancestry's major market.They really only want people to look at BMDs, census etc and now seem to be concentrating on putting online records that aren't too expensive or are free (e.g. the non-GW Campaingn medal rolls from 1793 onwardswhich can be freely downloaded from TNA anyway) There are 3272 pieces in the WO 329 reference and with each being a minimum of 300 pages, theat is an awful lot to digitise and index even using OCR (which is one reason why their indexing is so poor).

Even living in London, I would much rather spend the time it takes to copy the rolls actually looking through them online 24/7 but I can't see a business case for Ancestry to virtually duplicate what they have already spent (probably) a lot of money to licence with the MICs. If anything, FindMyPast or another provider might take them on.

[rolt968]

Just a slight correction to what has been said here in regards the war diaries.

From a NA Customer Advisor:

"We have recently completed scanning all the France and Flanders war diaries from series WO 95 and these will be available on Discovery before the centenary in 1914. We are hoping that other projects in the future will expand the coverage – I have no definite details to share at this time."

So it looks like we are going to have to wait for other theatres of war. Disappointed :-(.

I got a slight impression that it might be a little more disappointing than that.

I was trying to look at the war diaries for the RE units of 36 Division last year and couldn't because they were being digitised. I finally got to see them when I was in London in the early spring. However something which was said when I was there left me with the impression that while the "infantry" unit war diaries will become available online, those of some of the "support" units in a division might not. I'm hoping that I picked this up wrongly or the person to whom I was talking didn't really know. I hope I was wrong.

Has anyone else picked up this impression?

Roger.

Roger.

[spof]

This is the list of war diaries that were digitised so the 36 Division RE troops in WO 95/2497 shold be done.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/756.htm

[yellow]

I got a slight impression that it might be a little more disappointing than that.

I was trying to look at the war diaries for the RE units of 36 Division last year and couldn't because they were being digitised. I finally got to see them when I was in London in the early spring. However something which was said when I was there left me with the impression that while the "infantry" unit war diaries will become available online, those of some of the "support" units in a division might not. I'm hoping that I picked this up wrongly or the person to whom I was talking didn't really know. I hope I was wrong.

Has anyone else picked up this impression?

Roger.

Roger.

Sorry Roger I cannot give you a reply to that. You should contact the NA archives directly via email. They are always very helpful and reply in good time.

Of particular interest to me are diaries pertaining to the Gurkha Regiments. I don't believe they have a single diary online for those. I'm a true believer in equality and diversity. I think most of us do know that there were Indian Troops in France including the Gurkhas, let us hope they are not forgotten in the, "France batch" due to be released prior to 2014.