"Service numbers"

[Andy Twynam]

please forgive a very basic question, but is there a maximum number of men who can potentially have the same 'service number' ?  On the soldiers part of the forum, for example, someone is asking about 7491 William Butler.  If I just enter 7491 into the 'soldier number' search box on Find My Past it gives me nearly 200 results, admittedly many of those are duplicates but, conservatively, that's still 100+ different men all numbered 7491.

 

Apologies if this is covered in Long Long Trail or elsewhere.

[tullybrone]

Hi,

 

If you check the free Ancestry medal index card search it turns up 65 soldiers with that number.

 

Pre 1920 infantry regiments had their own numbering systems and during the war many even had separate numbers for different Battalions (Guards as ever the exception to the rule) hence many soldiers were issued with the same number.

 

Presumably different in "Corps" as my gf joined RFA 11th August 1914 and his number as a Driver is duplicated by, IIRC, a Shoeing Smith and a Gunner. 

 

Post 1920 army service numbers were introduced which should prevent duplication.

 

Regards

 

Steve Y

 

 

[Muerrisch]

17 minutes ago, tullybrone said:

 

Pre 1920 infantry regiments had their own numbering systems and during the war many even had separate numbers for different Battalions (Guards as ever the exception to the rule) hence many soldiers were issued with the same number.

 

Post 1920 army service numbers were introduced which should prevent duplication.

 

Regards

 

Steve Y

 

 

 

Not only during the war ................... for as long as there was a Militia [later Special Reserve 1908] and a Volunteer Force [later Territorial Force 1908] all line infantry regiments had a plethora of numbering systems. The only constant was that the Regular battalions of a regiment shared one series.

[Andy Twynam]

thanks Steve Y.

 

so, it seems to me pretty inevitable that you are going to get two men with the same name and number.  How many Fred Smiths are there, for example ?  Which leads me to ask - how much information was contained on an identity tag - name, number + something else ?

Edited 19 July , 2016 by Andy Twynam

[Muerrisch]

religion, regiment

[Andy Twynam]

14 minutes ago, Muerrisch said:

religion, regiment

 

right, so hopefully no danger of wrongly identifying a body

 

... and, to be clear, when people refer to 'soldier number' or 'service number' or 'regimental number' - that's all the same thing is it ?

Edited 19 July , 2016 by Andy Twynam