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Remembered Today:

Index to be released of pre 1901 DoB service records still held by MoD


Justinth

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It is from the same source. Now fingers crossed they can get on with releasing more service records as was suggested by the MoD review last year.

 

Best

 

Justin

 

Edited by Justinth
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  • 3 months later...

The pre 1901 birthdate files held by the MoD are listed on Ancestry, as already noted. But access to them is typically complicated by Ancestry. I was tempted to include it in the 'Worst Indexing' thread.

   If you only look at Ancestry's Content - UK and Ireland  you will not find them. If you have access to all of ancestry content, you will find them. So where do they lurk? I went through each country one at a time , including United States, who seem to have been the source of the transcript, but nothing. However clicking on Ethnicity then African American, or Jewish American or Native American, there they are! Bizarre.

 

Or is it just me??

 

Edit...and I find it too difficult to work out how to tell Ancestry about this. Can a smarter person (if such exists) please tell them?

 

charlie

Edited by charlie962
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Sounds related to this Ancestry issue, no sign of battalion diaries for me the other day then they re-appear.

 

Quote

Edit...and I find it too difficult to work out how to tell Ancestry about this

 

I've tried telling them things and never seen any change.

TEW

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11 hours ago, charlie962 said:

The pre 1901 birthdate files held by the MoD are listed on Ancestry, as already noted. But access to them is typically complicated by Ancestry. I was tempted to include it in the 'Worst Indexing' thread.

  

The database title has changed from "UK, Military Indexes, 1920-1971"  (post 150) to 

UK, Military Discharge Indexes, 1920-1971, located in the category Military

I searched the database card catalogue separately for UK, then Military, then Discharge, then Indexes and the only one which gave a positive search result was Discharge.

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=61448  (same as post 150)

 

Cheers

Maureen

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  • 1 month later...

To get a copy of the service file from the MoD, have I really got to provide the death certificate of my grandfather born 119 years ago?

Charlie

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18 minutes ago, charlie962 said:

To get a copy of the service file from the MoD, have I really got to provide the death certificate of my grandfather born 119 years ago?

Charlie

From the supporting blurb:

 

Subject to the payment of an administration fee and provision of a death certificate (except where death was in service), certain information can be provided from the records of service of service personnel on request under the publication scheme.

 

so I'm afraid so.

Charlie

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Thanks Charlie, it was the blurb and application forms I was reading. I had hoped there was a dispensation granted in a moment of sanity but I clearly live in another world. Charlie

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3 minutes ago, Maureene said:

 may be waived when the date of birth of the individual was more than 116 years ago

Maureen, have a gold star. My faith in bureaucrats having brief moments of sanity is restored.

Charlie

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9 hours ago, Maureene said:

This archived information page says the requirement about proof of death  may be waived when the date of birth of the individual was more than 116 years ago, so it would be worth enquiring. 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20091204154014/http://www.veterans-uk.info/pdfs/service_records/army_pack.pdf

 

Cheers

Maureen

Just been looking through the info on the link Maureen posted and below the page of Army contact numbers in red is a reference to [WW1 service records on the Mormons site The Latter Day Saints],  does anybody know which records these are!

Den

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Trying to find out about a relative from another topic I was given a link to this topic.

 

My relative served overseas in both ww1 and ww2 and was born 1898. So I searched the files and his name does not appear. I checked for incorrect spelling and still no luck.

I checked against dob and not one reference. Finally I checked for the year only of his birth and came up with 65 names but not his.

I noticed that most, if not all, of those 65 names began with a W or a Y. Is this an example of "weeding" ?

 

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2 hours ago, TTracer44 said:

Just been looking through the info on the link Maureen posted and below the page of Army contact numbers in red is a reference to [WW1 service records on the Mormons site The Latter Day Saints],  does anybody know which records these are!

Den

The FamilySearch  (Mormon site} catalogue has many references to records which are filmed National Archives records including

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2125045

United Kingdom, World War I Service Records, 1914-1920 It contains records from two publications in the National Archives: WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers' Documents, First World War "Burnt Documents") and WO 364 (War Office: Documents from Pension Claims, First World War).  These records are digitised microfilms.

 

However, when you click through   to view the images, the message is " To view these images you must do one of the following:

Sign in to Familysearch.org as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Access the site at a family history center.

Access the site at a FamilySearch affiliate library.

 

If you have to go to a Family History Centre, you would be better off viewing the records on Ancestry or findmypast which are available at the Centres.

Even if you were a church member, viewing the digitised microfilms may not be easy unless you have a high speed internet connection, and the microfilm images are not searchable the way Ancestry or findmypast are. I have been having great trouble with some FamilySearch records unrelated to WW1 which are available on home computers. The opinion was that this was related to internet speed, even though I live in the suburbs of a major city in Australia

I don't think the records above are a realistic alternative. 

 

The catalogue search is https://www.familysearch.org/catalog/search. Perhaps there are some  WW1  records to be found which would be useful.

 

Regarding the files held by the Ministry of Defence, I understand there has been weeding, so a file is not held for everyone you might expect to be there.

 

Cheers

Maureen

 

 

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On 04/10/2017 at 22:02, Maureene said:

This archived information page says the requirement about proof of death  may be waived when the date of birth of the individual was more than 116 years ago, so it would be worth enquiring. 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20091204154014/http://www.veterans-uk.info/pdfs/service_records/army_pack.pdf

 

Cheers

Maureen

Maureene,

In general terms, how would you know to go and search the TNA archive for something that has (invisibly) changed on the original .gov page?  I note that the 116 year rule no longer appears on the current page, so is it likely to be current or has it been abolished or superceded?

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On 02/04/2016 at 08:57, busterfield said:

Hello from someone new to the site and struggling a bit. I've done the gov.uk MOD collation summary and cannot find anything regarding pre 1901 DoB. Is there a link for this dummy to go to.

Justin,

 

I think you have misunderstood busterfield's comment.  In the FOI letter, it says 'A description of the relevant accounts can also be found on .gov.uk using “MOD collation summary” as a search term'.  In other words, you can find out the meaning of column A in the spreadsheets.  I too have searched and been unable to find what should be there.  This is quite separate to finding the eight files and collating them.

 

The splits do seem to be for the 65536 limit because the Account codes run numerically throughout the eight sheets.  Also the prefix in "Item Code" (column B ) seems to change every time the Account changes, although I have not checked them all.

 

I have noted that the sheets all cover dobs 1864 to 1900 (except sheet 3 - 1865 and sheet 6 - 1868).

 

The Accounts listed per sheet are as follows.  Perhaps they relate to something in another column, eg officers (as suggested above) or regiments.

Sheet 1 - a/c 11001

Sheet 2 - a/c 11001, 02, 04 (just six entries), 05

Sheet 3 - a/c 11005

Sheet 4 - a/c 11005

Sheet 5 - a/c 11005, 06

Sheet 6 - a/c 11006

Sheet 7 - a/c 11006 to 13001 (eight different)

Sheet 8 - a/c 13001 to 15026 (ten different).

 

Obviously, some accounts are bigger than others and would Sheets 7 and 8, being almost "miscellaneous" relate to regimental order of precedence or something?  It would be really nice if the Collation Summary were actually where it is supposed to be.

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8 hours ago, Stuart T said:

Maureene,

In general terms, how would you know to go and search the TNA archive for something that has (invisibly) changed on the original .gov page?  I note that the 116 year rule no longer appears on the current page, so is it likely to be current or has it been abolished or superceded?

Stuart, I don't know if the 116 year rule still applies. However, I think it is worth enquiring whether it does, or proceeding as though it does, by saying with the MOD application that a death certificate is not enclosed, as the birth occurred more than 116 years ago. The URL I quoted was originally from www.veterans-uk.info. I had this saved.  I don't know where I found it originally.

 

Cheers

Maureen

Edit: replaced incorrect word.

Edited by Maureene
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Thanks, Maureen.  I presume you mean "birth was more than 116 years ago".  Has anyone else ever been tipped off to use the web archive relating to a current .gov page?

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3 hours ago, Stuart T said:

  I presume you mean "birth was more than 116 years ago".  

Yes,  sorry for the error. I have now edited post 167.

 

Cheers

Maureen

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21 hours ago, Stuart T said:

In other words, you can find out the meaning of column A in the spreadsheets.  I too have searched and been unable to find what should be there.

 

If you put the following into Google it should lead you to another spreadsheet with the Account number details.

 

20141104-MOD_Main_archive_dataset_O

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David - brilliant.  That's what we need.  Thanks.

 

PS re A/c code 1002, what on earth is WAMI?

Edited by Stuart T
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I have just noticed that a/c 11004 which has only a handful of entries is in fact one of the biggest accounts in total (over 1 million).

 

Charlie - are you affected by WAMI?

Edited by Stuart T
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On 10/4/2017 at 22:02, Maureene said:

This archived information page says the requirement about proof of death  may be waived when the date of birth of the individual was more than 116 years ago, so it would be worth enquiring. 

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20091204154014/http://www.veterans-uk.info/pdfs/service_records/army_pack.pdf

 

Cheers

Maureen

I've used the MOD index to obtain many sets of service records for soldiers whose medals are in my collection. As long as I have a date of birth and state that in the covering letter, they seem happy.  In nearly 20 cases I've never once been asked for proof.

 

Tony

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  • 7 months later...

Hi,

Came across this on ancestry.ca under UK, Military Discharge Indexes 1920-1971 when searching for my father's service number.  

Name: W. Bryce

Birth Date: 21 April 1895

Service Number: 1467147

Rank: Army Other ranks, Discharges for 1921-1971

Additional Regiment: Royal Artillery

Reference Number: ADT000068048

Household Members: 131801

 

My father, William Bryce, was born 21 April 1895, was in the Royal Engineers in WW1, He told me he acted as a calvaryman, a sniper, a signalman, and a motorcycle despatch rider.  I have a photo of him on horseback with rifle & a crookstick (used for checking for breaks in communication lines).  Is the same surname, initial, & birth date too much of a coincidence?  Could Royal Artillery be a clerical mistake?  I guess it's possible that he could have served in both the RE & the RA but the latter has never been mentioned in our family history.  Also, I've never come across a 7 digit service number!  Any thoughts?

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

 

Bill Bryce

PS What are Household Members above?

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