Service Records

[kevin]

I afew questions about service records,

1) Who filled them in?

2) Where were there filled in?

3) I hold two sets of records for my grandfather one for his Training and another for his front line Battalions(is this correct)?

4)There seems to be certain things omited from the records like promotions,

i am aware of this due to other material that i have, is this common?

Regards Kevin

[Coldstreamer]

Certainly filled in at regimental level for the Coldstream guards as the handwriting on loads of ww1 is the same

Coldstream papers certainly show promotions. Maybe that page is missing /lost. Was he promoted ever ? Removing info is common , plenty of weeding has sadly been done over time 

[Coldstreamer]

Me thinks I’m looking at the wrong end of the posts as this is quite old 

[Michelle Young]

The OP is also deceased.

[FROGSMILE]

On 21/10/2002 at 21:24, kevin said:

I afew questions about service records,

1) Who filled them in?

2) Where were there filled in?

3) I hold two sets of records for my grandfather one for his Training and another for his front line Battalions(is this correct)?

4)There seems to be certain things omited from the records like promotions,

i am aware of this due to other material that i have, is this common?

Regards Kevin

1.  They were maintained routinely pre war by civilian clerks at Regimental Records Offices, but the Army expanded so much during the war that these had to be duplicated as numbered Infantry Records Offices (IRO) in order to cope with the surge in numbers.  

2.  The IRO were encapsulated within the Army’s administrative regional “Commands” infrastructure and set up within either, buildings leased by the war office, or hutments erected on patches of open ground within existing depots.

3.  No not correct, all records for training, upgrading, promotion, posting and any transfers were retained in an individual military service record (what would nowadays be called a personnel file).  These records were ‘informed’ via written communications in the guise of “Battalion Part Two Orders” that were routinely published under the signature of officers commanding units (nowadays called ‘commanding officers’).

4.  Anything missing from your file has simply been lost, or weeded over the one hundred years since the war.  To ease the pressure upon storage facilities over the years the routine weeding of service records become commonplace.

NB.  Additionally, individual pay files were kept at regional Army Pay Offices (APO) and these too were informed via submissions from the IRO.

 I hope that helps.

Edited 7 September , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[FROGSMILE]

On 31/08/2021 at 08:18, Michelle Young said:

The OP is also deceased.

Oops, sorry Michelle, it’s been one of those days…