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Remembered Today:

Soldiers' Medical Records, are they complete?


Skipman

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Does anyone know if the FindMyPast "British Armed Forces, First World War Soldiers' Medical Records" are complete. They are very useful. So far they seem to have added those below, are there more to follow?

 

    No 11 Casualty Clearing Station
    No 3 Casualty Clearing Station
    No 31 Casualty Clearing Station
    No 34 Casualty Clearing Station
    No 34 Combined Casualty Clearing Station
    No 34 Combined Clearing Hospital
    No 39 Casualty Clearing Hospital
    No 39 Casualty Clearing Station
    No 82 Casualty Clearing Station

    18th General Hospital
    19th General Hospital
    28th General Hospital
    2nd General Hospital
    4th Stationary Hospital
    85th General Hospital
    Catterick Military Hospital
    County Of Middlesex War Hospital At Napsbury
    Craiglockhart Hospital
    Hm Hospital Ship "Assaye"
    No 34 Combined Clearing Hospital
    No 39 Casualty Clearing Hospital
    Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital At Millbank

    139th Field Ambulance
    149th Field Ambulance
    14th Field Ambulance
    51st Field Ambulance
    66th Field Ambulance
   

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I believe they are complete in the sense that all those A&D books which survived have now been digitised and made available on FMP.

Of course they are very much incomplete in the sense that there were many 100s of additional medical units for whose A&D registers have not survived.

Compare your list to here:

Hospital admissions and discharge records - The Long, Long Trail (longlongtrail.co.uk)

I am aware that there are A&D registers for the Canadian medical units in the Canadian archives but these have not been digitised as of yet.

Regards

Russ 

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I started a topic on the additions to this resource as they came up on FMP. My last update was on 10/4/2020 when the total stood at 1,330,356 records (individual entries).

Today it stands at a total of 1,335,419 records. There could be more for the UK based hospitals in your list but only if they run past 1921 (100 year rule). Time will tell if the total increases past 1,335,419.
 

Incidently, FMP's "British Armed Forces, First World War Soldiers' Medical Records" IE. the A&D books are only a small percentage of the 5%? sample retained for statistical use in the 1970s. The originals are at TNA and part of the MH106 series which is much more expansive than the FMP records.

TNA made a start on indexing the remainder of the MH106 series 1910-1926 which are not online anywhere as yet. There are WWI medical sheets, medical cards etc. These were retained with some coming from specfic units EG. numbered blocks from Royal Field Artillery and Leicestershire Regiment spring to mind. Also retained were some cards/sheets for specific ailments or injuries. NB. I've just checked and some of the WWI records run into 1959 and I assume won't be available until 2059.

Quote from TNA

Quote

Additional information regarding this case will be added to the catalogue when the case becomes over 100 years old. In cases when the date is not known, the latest date in the series (1923) will be used

 

Although I've not had any success as yet I've been searching name/number on TNA within MH106 for any additional information. The TNA indexing can be quite extensive and list a man's full evacuation from front line back to UK hospitals and some treatment - see this example.

Should you have a UK hospital name you can search on that as well, 286 results for EG. Exeter.

TEW

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2 minutes ago, TEW said:

WWI records run into 1959 and I assume won't be available until 2059.

What's another 38 years.

Craig

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I have found a couple of examples in the last 2 weeks where Forces War Records have transcribed an MH106 record that does not appear on FindmyPast. At least one was a Salonika record.

charlie

 

PS I'll try to link the examples

 

Edit- here is one thread where I came across this.  Charlie carter T4/058509

Edited by charlie962
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I don't have the details to hand but I found many pages of one hospital book on FMP had all slipped out of kilter with names being indexed to a number on the row below, little chance of finding the right man!

I think Forces War Records have a better transcribing system but as you get some odd remarks in the books and additions by the Medical Research Committee post-war and columns being used for different things across different books it can't be an easy task to index these. Sometimes it's not that clear if an Ambulance Train brought the man in or took him out.

TEW

 

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25 minutes ago, TEW said:

out of kilter with names being indexed to a number on the row below, little chance of finding the right man!

Just tested that with Charlie Carter by searching for Service Number *058509 on FMP. Of the hits that came up, none are for medical records.

Charlie

 

Edit- Carter's record is on 31 CCS so should be on FMP !

Edited by charlie962
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My original Out of Kilter topic.

I no longer have my subscription so I can't check if they corrected the entries.

TEW

 

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Re Charlie Carter-  These are the refs quoted by the OP of the linked thread

Battalion:No. 844 Company 
Archive Reference:
MH106/569 (1917 Mar 31-1917 Apr 7)
No.31 Casualty Clearing Station: British other ranks, Greeks and Cypriots

(and)

MH106/587 (1917 Dec 15-1917 Dec 31)
No.31 Casualty Clearing Station: British other ranks

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Looks like FMP don't have those books!

You can use the search to filter specfic MH106 refs, 569 & 587 do not show up. They have 30,708 hits for 31CCS but without a paid up subscription I can't tell what's missing (well I could but it'd take hours).

So for @Skipman looks like 31 CCS is not complete on FMP even though the missing books are more than 100 years. No idea why and no idea what else is absent.

TEW

 

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Using keywords 106/569 (you actually have to put in 106?569) I get no result but 106?565 correctly find another selection of 31 CCS entries. I suggest there are some books within the series that have not yet been done at all?

Charlie

Crossed posts with TEW- we've come to same conclusion.

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Looking further I'm seeing a lot of missing books for 31 CCS. Certainly nothing for 567-590.

TEW

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Thanks for all interesting input. Noticed this on a google search "Due to data protection, Findmypast has only published records where the admission year is dated back 100 years. The medical records were collected by the Medical Research Committee and then given over to the British Museum during the First World War, 1914 to 1918"

 

Mike

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3 hours ago, TEW said:

Looking further I'm seeing a lot of missing books for 31 CCS. Certainly nothing for 567-590.

TEW

The above series are well past 100 years but not on FMP. Although there were some British Ordinary Ranks books the bulk seemed to be dare I say - not British.

TNA state that for records in MH106 that have no visible date they are capped as being 1923 which is an odd date when the series is dated 1910-1926.

They may well be continuing to index more of these records as they state:

Catalogue descriptions for the remaining medical case sheets are being enhanced as part of a volunteer project financed by the Friends of The National Archives.

Perhaps as some of these records were still being used and added to into the late 1950s it becomes something of a headache regarding the 100 year rule  If a man was re-admitted to hospital in 1947 would that re-set the 100 year rule?

TEW

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