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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

A Battalion Database


chris basey

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I'm sure that, amongst the Forum members, there must be a wealth of experience of constructing and maintaining regimental/battalion databases.

A friend has worked hard over many years to assemble a mass of information on men who served in a British Army WW1 Battalion. There is information on approximately five thousand (!) individuals varying from a just a few lines to several pages per person. The records include photographs and copies of documents.

We are now trying to work out the best way to preserve all this information and present it in a searchable form as well as to decide on software and the logistics of the data input.

If you have some relevant experience that you would share, would you please get in touch?

Thanks

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My advice. Set out from the very beginning with publishing over the web in mind. That is, something like the POW database on the Long, Long Trail. Dead easy to include images as well as text/numeric/date data.

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Chris, the Canadian Great War Database, link, put together by Marc Leroux is a good example of what can be accomplished in a database.

Marc is a member of this Forum and would be worth asking his advice, link.

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Hi chris basey

I use lotus Approach, which I find very good but most poeple go for the micsoft databases, I have only come across one other person on the forum who uses Approach. I do not know if Approach is workable via the web ? Plus am not sure if photos can be added to Approach files, I have never added photos to my database.

Annette

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Chris,

The thread shown HERE may be of interest.

Marc

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I'm sure that, amongst the Forum members, there must be a wealth of experience of constructing and maintaining regimental/battalion databases.

A friend has worked hard over many years to assemble a mass of information on men who served in a British Army WW1 Battalion.  There is information on approximately five thousand (!) individuals varying from a just a few lines to several pages per person.  The records include photographs and copies of documents.

We are now trying to work out the best way to preserve all this information and present it in a searchable form as well as to decide on software and the logistics of the data input.

If you have some relevant experience that you would share, would you please get in touch? 

Thanks

Hello Chris,

I have just registered some two hours ago. It is strange how things work out sometimes, my first post was to have been on similar lines. We are both going down the same path I think with the same people, or almost. My project is, and has been for several years now, gathering whatever information I can find on men and women from Norfolk who served and died in WW1. All who served in The Norfolk Regiment and died, from wherever.

So far I have some 23,000 individuals, some with more information than others.

I use Excel as the primary source of storage, it is easy to use, expandable and compatible with Access. After arranging the detail in Excel I then transfer it to Access. A good tool for producing such things as reports which can be manipulated to whatever format you wish to print. As I produce a booklet for each War Memorial researched, each one can be individual.

I have also built a website for another War Memorial project. All or any information you have produced by the Microsoft suite, can easily be transfered into Frontpage.

Another link we have is we both know Brian Buck.

Hopefully this has been of some use, anything else I might be of help with in the future please ask.

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Chris,

I've already completed a database that's available for downloading from my website. It's created using MS Access and prints reports etc etc. A few others have used it and the feedback was pretty good. You're welcome to download a copy if you like - it's free of charge.

You may just have to wait a couple of days because I've changed the website temporarily but it will be back up and running after this weekend.

Send me a PM if you're interested and I'll post again next week when it's available.

Tim L.

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