War Office Weekly Casualty lists - Genealogist website

[owen4256]

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2013/thegenealogistcouk-releases-casualty-records-20/

Does anyone have experience of using this website? If the database is searchable by unit and date I would be extremely interested. If only by name, much less so. Very interested to hear from anyone who has used the site to extract unit lists.

Regards


Clive

[ss002d6252]

I tried our on a free trial, the search is very clunky.

Although you can use a wildcard in the search I found I had to use a man I knew would already be on the list to find out they had formatted the unit before searching the rest.

If you also use only an initial letter in the surname with a wildcard and the unit you can get a list together quite quickly by going through each letter and dropping the results in to Microsoft Excel for formatting.

Craig

[Chris_Baker]

I reviewed this a few weeks ago: http://www.1914-1918.net/onthetrail/index.php/genealogist-casualty-lists-reviewed/

I use it daily and have uncovered a great many casualties that could not be found by other means.

It is at present not searchable by regiment or unit.

[TEW]

I've been using it a lot and agree that I'm finding a lot of extra information. The search options are very odd! I seem to have 2 completely different styled search boxes for casualties. They are not 'basic and advanced' versions.

One has an input for FORENAME - SOURCE - REGIMENT - SERVICE NUMBER - SURNAME - STATUS - RANK.

The other is via the master search/military. A name OR Regiment OR Keyword has to be entered. Then filter the results in the left pane 'Casualty Lists ; Other'. You are then offered a 'search casualty lists only' option

I tried 'Exeter' in the Keyword and seem to have filtered men with Home town and place of enlistment of Exeter. Regiment names work in the keyword box as do numbers. Dates can be filtered to a year but I can't see why setting 1917 and entering 'september' as a keyword produces nothing as it would appear to be part of the transcription identifying the Daily List Date.

Ability to search numbers with wildcards has eluded me. Being able to manually browse the originals would be nice rather than page at a time. Jumping 20 pages e.g. is possible by manually adjusting the webpage address in another window.

TEW

Have just noticed it is possible to enter the List Number into the Keyword box and then browsing that list is possible but only by searching 'Search all records' rather than 'search casualty lists only'

[Chris_Baker]

Those options sound different to what I have been seeing! How odd. I'd better have a hunt around.

[ss002d6252]

I used the option to filter by casualty list only.

Ability to search numbers with wildcards has eluded me. Being able to manually browse the originals would be nice rather than page at a time. Jumping 20 pages e.g. is possible by manually adjusting the webpage address in another window.

I was searching for unit and surname (A*, B* etc) and copying the data to excel - I didn't use any any year filter (that I can remember) or use a service number as I was looking at large numbers of men rather than individuals.

Craig

[westkent78]

Do you get to see actual scans of the data, or is just transcriptions?

I'm hoping Ancestry and or FMP get this too as I really don't need another subscription to have to maintain.

Thanks,

Matthew

[ss002d6252]

Do you get to see actual scans of the data, or is just transcriptions?

I'm hoping Ancestry and or FMP get this too as I really don't need another subscription to have to maintain.

Thanks,

Matthew

I didn't look ( I just took the transcription) but I think at least some of the lists do have images available.

Craig

[westkent78]

Thanks Craig. I should have read Chris' review before posting. Looks like you can see the images. May be something to dip into occasionally until they have implemented searches by unit/regiment.

Matthew

[TEW]

Chris

The casualty list home page I've set up is HERE

Matthew

Originals are available which vary in form through the war. Up to the Weekly List Aug 7th 1917 there are scans of the lists printed in The Times. I should add there seem to be gaps. I don't think you'll find anything for the May-July 1917 period but I think they are working on that gap. Another point is for the May-July 1917 period you won't find wounded ORs in The Times but there are ORs who were previously reported wounded now reported prisoner, or previously reported wounded now reported died of wounds or previously reported wounded now reported missing.

Have just tried 1914 and although there are links to an original they don't seem to link up, perhaps these have just been added or some temporary glitch.

There are posts on the forum about the casualty list in general which are well worth a read. You can see what some of those Old Sweats have gleaned from the list in the old fashioned way of going to the British Library and looking at the lists with pen and paper in hand.

Post 1 Post2

As for Unit/Regiment wounded searches, a quick look as an example only resulted in 868 hits for Lancashire Fusiliers for the war period which seems a bit low.

As with all these things they tend to be only as good as the OCR software. Given the typeface size of The Times and the poor printing, many of the men are probably not showing. Add to that the typesetter having to set the page out = more errors.

I have no idea how many times the lists would be copied/re=typed from Battalion HQ on form B 213 to The Times' office but more copies = more errors

TEW

[ss002d6252]

I've looked around the site and I think they've changed the search as as I can't seem to see the same options I used (unless you have to be logged in and subscribed to see the extra options.)

Craig

[westkent78]

Thanks TEW.

I see. So until 1917 it's from the Times. I have most of those on CD from when I had access to the Times Online and downloaded with wild abandon, but access to the Weekly Lists would be invaluable.

I'm actually finding that the Daily Telegraph copies of the lists are easier to read than the Times ones due to better scanning, but as we're only in '1914' so far and I don't know how the typeface size is going to shrink when we get to 1915 and 1916, this may still be an option.

Matthew

[TEW]

Craig,

The 2 search options I mentioned behave oddly. The first time I used the lists I had the 7 box option. Later I could not find it even via my browser history. I assumed they had changed it but a week later while using the 3 box option somehow the 7 box reappeared. Having just spent 5 minutes trying to find the 7 box option via their dropdown lists I have to say I've failed!! But the above link in post#10 seems to work when logged in.

Matthew

I've been looking mainly through the WO Weekly Casualty lists for 1917 lists which commences with:

Weekly List No.1 7/8/1917. That weekly list starts with the Daily List of 30/7/1917 No. 5324. I'm still scratching my head as to why List No. 1 starts at 5324. It may be that the WO produced these lists before but stopped supplying some of the information to the press at the end of April 1917.

As each daily list is sequentially numbered, working backwards from 30/7/17 (list 5324) I arrived at 1/1/1903!! Not a lot of value in producing Casualty Lists during peacetime so perhaps Daily List No. 1 started during the Crimean??

The Times stopped printing lists of wounded ORs at the end of April 1917, other types of casualty are printed.

In a number of other forum threads it was asked 'Where did The Times get their list from' before the weekly lists came out in Aug 1917. Presumably, the WO did print lists to give to the press, if only those existed somewhere.

Interesting that the WO Weekly Casualty Lists were registered at the GPO as a newspaper.

TEW

[Petra]

There is this small article in The Times of 30 July 1917 (p. 10, bottom right corner) which explains about the Weekly Casualty Lists:

FULL CASUALTY LISTS.

------<O>------

WEEKLY OFFICIAL EDITION TO BE PUBLISHED.

The Secretary of the War Office announces that, it having become impossible, owing to the limitation of space imposed by the shortage of paper, for newspapers to publish the full casualty lists which are supplied to them daily, arrangements have been made for the issue of these lists by the Stationery Office in a weekly edition. Copies will be obtainable through any bookseller, or from the various branches of the Stationery Office:--London, Imperial House, Kingsway, W.C.2, or 28, Abingdon-street, Westminster, S.W.1; Cardiff, 1, St. Andrew’s-crescent; Manchester, 37, Peter-street; Edinburgh, 23, Forth-street; and from Messrs. F. Ponsonby (Limited), 116, Grafton-street, Dublin.

The first issue will appear on Tuesday, August 7. The lists will be sold at the price of 3d. per copy to cover cost of production, or post free 4d. Subscriptions will be received by the Stationery Office at the rate of 4s. per quarter, including postage.

It is thought that the publication of the casualty lists in this form is the most suitable method of making available a complete record of casualties, and should the demand for these lists seem to warrant it, copies of the previous lists issued to the Press during the last three months, but not published in full by any paper, will also be placed on sale.

Does anybody know whether the preceding 3 months' lists were ever published? They would be exactly what I need... The Times appears not to have published lists of missing, only occasionally listed a few "previously missing, now reported killed" or similar.