Grandfather research

[Guest Dave448]

I am wanting to do some research on my Grandfather - John Robert Elwick, date of birth -

22nd July 1882, born in Durham. All I know is that he fought in WW1 with the Durham Light Infantry. I do not have his medals but I do have his Silver Badge with the number - 347600 stamped onto the back of it.

I understand that this number can be useful in my research but I don't know where to start with it.

Can anyone help?

Dave

[armourersergeant]

Dave,

this link may be his Medal card details held at the National Archives, you can download it for a fee.

regards

Arm

[philg]

So when you've got his medal card from the link above, this will tell you what medals he got and it will give you some references called Medal Roll Sheets. Then you go the National Archives at Kew and find these roll sheets (which I incidentally did for the first time yesterday) and find out what Battalion he was in. You can do this for medals and SWB. Then you can lookup the Battalion diary and start working out where he was during his time in the war. While you're there, you can also search for his Service Record, which if you're very lucky, will have survived.

Other than that, use the internet to research the DLI, there's plenty of info out there.

Phil

[Tony Lund]

According to this article on the Long Long Trail, when the Territorial Battalions were renumbered the numbers - 325001 to 350000 were given to the 9th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry.

Page Link here.

Tony.