British Red Cross - VAD records

[mbriscoe]

Might have been posted previously but this was a family history list.

 

Quote

  *   The British Red Cross is delighted to launch a new digital resource making the First World War service records of members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment accessible online for the first time. Recording the service of ambulance drivers, nurses, stretcher bearers, knitters and cooks, the collection is an exceptional source of historical information about non-military activity at this time. Please visit RedCross.org<https://vad.redcross.org.uk/> to search the first tranche of 30,000 cards.

 

 

 

[Jim Strawbridge]

I find the new search window hopeless and a step backwards from what was available previously. It used to have boxes for surname, first name and places. This new one box brings up large quantities of candidates which takes ages to work through if one can be bothered.

[seaJane]

If you have forename and surname, it will find an individual if you search the whole name as a phrase (usual parameters, "Alice Clark"). It will also find her as Alice Clark if you type her maiden name, "Alice Wright." 

But it won't find her if you type Alice Clarke, and you won't find Mary Clarke if you type "Mary Clark."

At the very least they need a wildcard key, as well as better ways of filtering (on a quick try I haven't worked out whether the filters can be combined, and I'm a librarian and used to search engines; so how is anyone else supposed to manage?).

[alf mcm]

The records are also available on Findmypast, if you have a subscription, with a much better search screen;-

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/british-army-british-red-cross-society-volunteers-1914-1918

Rgards,

Alf McM

[TEW]

I found with the older search function that it was irrelevant what went into a box.

Put surname in 'Hospital Name' box or 'Surname' box and you get the same results.

Not ventured into the new one yet but the reviews here are not promising.

TEW

[johnmelling1979]

The new search method needs refining

[Vic Styles]

I am trying to find information with regard to a Mary Louise Pimm later AKA Mrs Michael Pym who was in Belgium when they were invaded by the Germans in 1914. She was bi lingual and I believe she served in the International Red Cross during the occupation  I am told she did covert operations. She survived the war and she later married in France in 1919 and went to America. Also in Belgium was her brother Harry Pimm. He convinced the authorities that he was American until they declared war on Germany in 1916, he was arrested in Luxembourg and sent to Rhubelen internment camp  in Berlin Germany

[KizmeRD]

Harry & Meika’s mother (Louise van Tongelen) was Belge and met their father (William Edwin Pimm) when he was studying art in Antwerp. Their brother Victor was an officer in the West Yorkshire Regiment and was killed at Ypres in 1916.

 I have it in mind that Meika (Mary Louise) may well have been working in Elsie de Wolfe’s (Lady Mendl) ‘Mission Ambrine’ burns unit, perhaps others may know where to look to find a staff list? (I don’t believe it was officially a Red Cross Unit, and it was operating long before America entered the War in 1917).

MB

Edited 23 February by KizmeRD

[Vic Styles]

BINGO!!  She was my great aunt. If you google Mrs Michael Pym you should get more information. She is a mystery lady, she was a person of interest withe the FBI in the USA.

 

 

 

[KizmeRD]

She married Capt Samuel N.Branch US Army Medical Reserve Corps in 1919 and emigrated to America with him. Find out where he served and you may perhaps discover that they got to know each other whilst working together during the war. They divorced in 1925.

(A few British VAD’s supplemented American Red Cross nurses at several of the Base Hospitals taken over by the US Army in France).

MB