CWGC database - when was it first put online?

[Phil Wood]

Trying to work out why some names would be added to a memorial in the 1990s - occured to me that it might be a result of a new ablity to search the CWGC data.

[headgardener]

Late 90's, if my memory serves me right.

Edit: it was always possible to apply to CWGC by post, and then in the mid-90's by phone. I always found them very helpful.

[Phil Wood]

Thanks HG

[Stephen Nulty]

I'm pretty sure that the first time I used the online database was 1999, though I don't know how long it had been there

[Kitchener's Bugle]

A simplified 'search by surname' version of the database was made available at the Commission's website in 1998.

[Kitchener's Bugle]

This is how they used to do it back in the day........................

[Phil Wood]

Thanks - I guess that means that a search by place in the 'additional information' could only have been done at Maidenhead until 2000 or later. So online access was not the reason for a memorial to have names added in the 1990s.

[headgardener]

Thanks - I guess that means that a search by place in the 'additional information' could only have been done at Maidenhead until 2000 or later.

The 'additional info' search facility is only a relatively recent innovation for the online database. The CWGC developed the facility for their own 'in-house' database back in the late 90's and started offering searches of this kind (i.e. next-of-kin from a particular place) or based on a combination of search criteria (i.e. men from a particular regiment who were killed on a specific day, etc) for an additional fee - which I think was £25.

If the appearance of these names on local memorials is indicative of anything, I'd suggest that it was the growth in interest in tracing the names of men on memorials. It probably has as much to do with the establishment of forums like this one and of the release of the CD-ROM of SDGW as it does with the CWGC database going online....!

[MartH]

The CWGC records where digitized to reduce the cost of the cemetery register production whenever there was a change, and to aid searches at head office, but the main finance was cost reason was the cemetery register cost reprint reduction. The WFA got wind of the digitization and (quickly) formed a briefing committee from technical members who gave advice and wrote a paper for the Commission to encourage them to go online with a search facility. It went live 11th November 1998 with a primitive search facility, and had several million hits on the first day way above the CWGC expectations.

I remember it well, I ended on the Ariane's PC on the front doing searches for Lynn MacDonald and her party of veterans late into the night and morning finding friends they had not before. I was fed beer in return by the veterans, on a: one waiting, one drinking, one in transit, and bits of paper with names written on. I still don't know where the British Ambassador slept that legendary night.

[Phil Wood]

The 'additional info' search facility is only a relatively recent innovation for the online database.

A recent innovation for the CWGC, but it was available for many years previously thanks to Geoff's marvellous search engine.

Thanks to all who have responded but MartH gets the prize for the exact date and a nice anecdote.