Multiple MICs

[Guest silentC]

Hello. First post.

I've downloaded from the National Archives what I believe to be my Grandfather's medal cards. I found them using the number 29707 which appears on one of the medals and is also on a Certificate of Transfer to Reserve that we have. I believe this number is the number of his regiment.

What I have downloaded is a single scanned image of 6 cards. I was a bit surprised that there were so many. 5 of the cards contain details regarding medals including the Victory, British War and 1915 Star medals but all have different roll details. They also cover a range of different regiments.

The 6th card appears to be related to a discharge under p392(iii)(cc) K.R. which I understand is meaning unfit for service on medical grounds. This is dated 10-12-1914. However, the certificate of transfer is dated 2-8-1919 and it shows him enlisting for the Sherwood Forresters on 3-10-1915.

One of the medal cards shows theatre of war as France and Qualifying Date 13.7.1915.

There seems to be a lot of conflicting information here, and the large number of cards and regiments has me wondering if the document I have downloaded contains records for more than one person. His name was Albert Ball, no middle name. When I search on that name and any of the regimental numbers on the cards, it always brings me back to the same record.

Can anyone shed any light?

[Stebie9173]

Definitely more than one person.

You get six men's MICs to a sheet including your own. You might even have got Albert Ball VC on there as well!

You just want the one that shows your mans number.

Steve.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

The MiCs are downloaded in Blocks of 6,unless your GF was awarded a Gallantry award{s} [MM/DCM/MiD/Etc] He should only have the one{possibly two cards;as on occasion a seperate card was made up for 1914~15 Star,etc}however if the numbers are all different then you have 1 Card that relates to your GF & 5 unrelated ones{just the way the NA works,&justifies the £3.50 charge for the one card you seek!}with a common name like A Ball it is not surprising that there is some confusion,but as you have corroborating evidence in your Certificate of Transfer,it shouldn't really cause you a problem,just disregard the cards that do not relate to your man.

[Guest silentC]

Ah, now that makes more sense.

So the Regimental number of 29707 relates to him specifically? I assumed it was the number of the regiment. When I enter it alone with no names, I get lots of matches on different people, so would the same numbers apply to different individuals in different regiments then?

What I find confusing is that some of the cards have more than one "Regtl. Number" on them.

Well, it's a bit disappointing then because we were hoping that the card might give some idea of where he went. We think he went to France but have yet to find anything to confirm. I suppose the thing to do now is to try and track down the movements of his regiment.

The card has what looks like 'fl Z' in the remarks column. I believe the Z relates to a transfer to reserves, which corresponds with the certificate of transfer.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. More research to do and more to learn it seems...

[Stebie9173]

Just to confuse even more it appears that Albert Ball has two cards...

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documen...=1&mediaarray=*

These have sequential reference numbers. They are likely to have different information on them. Just guessing but one probably has his Victory Medal and British war Medal and the other a 1914 or 1914-15 Star.

The other alternative is a Silver war Badge if he was discharged due to wounds but since you have mentioned Class Z, which you are right about, that is unlikely. Class Z was the Reserve for the "for the duration" men. They could have been recalled if necessary, but weren't.

If you look at the reference of the one you have already downlaoded then download the other one it may have more information on it...

As for Regimental Numbers they are exactly that - Regimental. Eachregiment gave its own numbers. There would be a man with 29707 as a number in the West Yorkshire regiment and also in the Northamptonshire regiment, Manchester Regiment, etc. There could even be the same number repeated in the same Regiment sometimes. The Army changed the system in 1920 to allocated a unique army number to everyone.

As for differenet Regiment numbers, the soldier would be allocated a new number when he changed regiment.

For example, a man who was 14517 in the Royal Berkshire Regiment transfers to the Hampshire Regiment is allocated a new number from the Hampshire series, say 25789. He then transfers to the Royal Engineers and gets a third number, say 214514.

If he transferred from a Hampshire Regiment battalion to another Hampshire Regiment battalion he would have kept the same number...

Territorial soldiers had a different numbering system again.

Steve.

[Guest silentC]

As for differenet Regiment numbers, the soldier would be allocated a new number when he changed regiment.

That's what I suspected and so I wondered if it was possible that more than one of the cards relates to him, perhaps if he had transferred between units. But then I guess there would still be only one medal card with multiple numbers on it, as in other examples I have seen.

I did download both of those records but they are identical. I've written to the NA about it since it's obviously a duplicate record. And then there's the extra 3.50 I paid for nothing, which at todays exchange rates represents a couple of schooners over here!!

There are only two medals that we know of, the British and the Victory medals. As far as I know he walked away unscathed (physically anyway) and hot footed it to Australia where he married my Grandmother. But because he didn't like to talk about it, no-one is really certain of where he went. He died when my mother was 13, so I never met him.

I've just found out that we have some cousins in the UK, so we're going to approach them about a trip to Kew to see what can be learned from the rolls. Very interesting this stuff. Wouldn't be possible to find it out without sites like this and of course the helpful people here.

Thanks for the information, it has been very helpful.

Cheers from Australia.