Medal index cards

[norfolk1]

Hi All 

 

Just a quick question , which is the best online site to download Medal Index cards from ?

 

Paul

[DavidOwen]

Personally I would suggest Ancestry (either via a subscription or free account access). You get a colour version and both sides of the card. Unfortunately their indexing can be frustrating at times, especially if the person's surname begins with B!

[johndavidswarbrick]

Ancestry also has the actual medal rolls, which sometimes supply additional information such as battalion and enlistment and release dates.

 

Dave Swarbrick

[norfolk1]

Hi

Thanks for that 

Paul

[PRC]

Ancestry is the only real option, particularly if you have a free account although that is just about the only series of documents in military records that you can see with a free account. Unless it has changed FindMyPast has (partial) transcriptions only.

 

To get round the issue of indexing on Ancestry I normally look at how the name is formatted \ spelt on the National Archive and then use that as the search criteria on Ancestry.

 

If you are stlll having problems finding your soldier on Ancestry then drill down through Military Records to "Awards & Decorations of Honor" and then "British Army WW1 Medal Rolls index Cards, 1914-1920". You then get a very different results page that shows at a glance the related service mumbers, making it much easier to spot where transcription errors, additional gaps in service numbers, just plain errors or even weirdness have crept in. Thus for example, the actual cards for a whole batch of Norfolk Regiment men have faded writing on the last few letters of "Norfolk" and thus appear indexed as "Norf" "Northampton" and "North Lancashire" - I'm sure there are others I've just not come across yet

 

Hope that helps,

 

Peter

[norfolk1]

Hi 

Thanks for all your help

Paul

[Jim Strawbridge]

A little highjacking here by me but Paul seems to have been satisfied. So here goes. On eBay recently I bought a 1914/5 star because it had a unit that I did not recognise. It was named to  3  HAVILDAR.  MEDHI  KHAN.  U.R.I.V.C.  Before bidding I had gone onto the National Archives website for British Army medal index cards 1914 - 1920.  Yipee !!!   Spelt slightly different I found under reference WO 372/13/202494 that a MIC exists for  HAVILDAR  MEHDI KHAN  UGANDA RAILWAY INDIAN VOLUNTEERS CORPS.  I am a subscriber to Ancestry and thought that it would be nice to place a copy of the MIC with the medal. But whatever information I put into the Ancestry search boxes I cannot find one. Any ideas?

[DavidOwen]

3 minutes ago, Jim Strawbridge said:

A little highjacking here by me but Paul seems to have been satisfied. So here goes. On eBay recently I bought a 1914/5 star because it had a unit that I did not recognise. It was named to  3  HAVILDAR.  MEDHI  KHAN.  U.R.I.V.C.  Before bidding I had gone onto the National Archives website for British Army medal index cards 1914 - 1920.  Yipee !!!   Spelt slightly different I found under reference WO 372/13/202494 that a MIC exists for  HAVILDAR  MEHDI KHAN  UGANDA RAILWAY INDIAN VOLUNTEERS CORPS.  I am a subscriber to Ancestry and thought that it would be nice to place a copy of the MIC with the medal. But whatever information I put into the Ancestry search boxes I cannot find one. Any ideas?

Here you go Jim

 

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/1262/30850_A001071-01909?pid=3595569&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DFAt39%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D1262%26gsln%3Dmehdi%26gsfn_x%3DNN_NIC%26gsln_x%3D1%26cp%3D0%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26uidh%3De21%26redir%3Dfalse%26gss%3Dangs-d%26pcat%3D39%26fh%3D51%26h%3D3595569%26recoff%3D%26fsk%3DMDszOTsyMA-61--61-%26bsk%3D%26pgoff%3D%26ml_rpos%3D52%26queryId%3Dd2e002824a3d2d9a43cab8b6f3957736&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=d2e002824a3d2d9a43cab8b6f3957736&usePUB=true&_phsrc=FAt39&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true

 

David

[Jim Strawbridge]

30 minutes ago, DavidOwen said:

Here you go Jim

 

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/1262/30850_A001071-01909?pid=3595569&backurl=https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc%3DFAt39%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D1262%26gsln%3Dmehdi%26gsfn_x%3DNN_NIC%26gsln_x%3D1%26cp%3D0%26new%3D1%26rank%3D1%26uidh%3De21%26redir%3Dfalse%26gss%3Dangs-d%26pcat%3D39%26fh%3D51%26h%3D3595569%26recoff%3D%26fsk%3DMDszOTsyMA-61--61-%26bsk%3D%26pgoff%3D%26ml_rpos%3D52%26queryId%3Dd2e002824a3d2d9a43cab8b6f3957736&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=d2e002824a3d2d9a43cab8b6f3957736&usePUB=true&_phsrc=FAt39&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true

 

David

 

I don't know how you did that but brilliant. Thank you.

[DavidOwen]

9 minutes ago, Jim Strawbridge said:

 

I don't know how you did that but brilliant. Thank you.

You are most welcome. I reversed the names.....

[chaz]

dont worry Jim, it happens to a lot of us.. I do many searches a week looking at medals and recipients to check if local or local to house in France. sometimes service numbers dont work unless you add all his numbers, then there is the initials or names as they were not recorded.

Although Ancestry gives us much help, its search facility is only as good as the information entered, I missed one recently as indexed Wilthsire not Wiltshire regiment

[norfolk1]

Thanks for all the information.

 

PAUL