WW1 RECORDS

[Jackie]

I've been doing my family history for a long time now, and the person who taught me a lot of the stuff is an extremely knowledgeable and experienced researcher (she's much better than me). She mentioned that when she started her family history, she looked at records relating to soldiers in WW1. This was done probably in the sixties or seventies, before it became a popular pastime.

In the last few years, she has had cause to revisit some of these old records, only to be told that they were destroyed by the Luftwaffe in WW2!

She heard from a knowledgeable source that somebody in the PRO actually ordered the wrong records to be dumped. Has anyone else heard about this?

[MartinWills]

Some records at the NA/PRO have been dispensed with in recent years. Amongst these are the previously unsorted RND/RMLI/RNAS records which have found their way to the Fleet Air Arm Museum.

I don't know specifically of any other "disposals" though some pals will know that a substantial tranche of nurses records have been added to the PRO collections available for consultation in recent years.

Martin

[duckman]

Reminds me of some Napoleonic research I did at the British Library some years ago. I consulted a series of military gazettes and some magazines from the 1790's-1810's. Went back to confirm some details a couple of months later (never mind 30 years), only to be told that that collection had be destroyed in WW2. No amount of arguing and presentation of evidence to the contrary would sway them. Fortunately I was only checking some of my own indecipherable handwriting and was happy to settle for what I had already gleaned on previous visits.

With the best will in the world, the people who work in the PRO etc aren't necessarily the fanatics we are, and I could well believe that some inattention lead to some valuable records (are there any other sort) being destroyed).

[Mark Hone]

This story seems remarkably similar to the old conspiracy theory amongst WW1 researchers that the MOD routinely replied to enquiries that service records had been destroyed 'by enemy action' whether they had or not. I thought that that suspicion had been laid to rest by the transfer to the PRO and the 'burnt records' restoration project.

[ianw]

It's obviously a handy catch all way of explaining away why you can't find a particular batch of records - rather than have to admit that you've lost or mis-filed them.

It does make you wonder what treasures exist un-noticed and mislaid in the past.

As Emperor Claudius remarked in Graves' book , if you want a document to survive, don't take special measures , just take it to the library and place it casually on a shelf to stay there for a thousand years. Not sure if this advice is still current in these " nick it, sell it" EBay days.

[Sue Light]

Jackie

I wonder what records your friend was looking at in the sixties, as most of the WW1 records we have access today were not available for public inspection then. Were they one or two sets of soldiers papers belonging to her close family, or something else? Many of the records were damaged when the War Office storage facility at Arnside Street, Walworth, was bombed on 8th September 1940, the result of which is evident to anyone today examining the charred remains preserved on microfilm.

I can well believe that in the intervening years some records have been lost or destroyed, and recently many have been badly filmed, and preserved in incorrect sequence, but 'failure to find' can also often be due to poor or inexperienced searching. 'Blame' is what seems to make the world go round today, and as all family historians discover, there are gaps in information in every area, for which we blame the archives, and the archives blame something else.....

Regards - Sue

[MartinWills]

This story seems remarkably similar to the old conspiracy theory amongst WW1 researchers that the MOD routinely replied to enquiries that service records had been destroyed 'by enemy action' whether they had or not. I thought that that suspicion had been laid to rest by the transfer to the PRO and the 'burnt records' restoration project.

There is some truth in this story if the saga of a Mr Chris Baker is to be believed.

I gather he has not yet managed to drum up enough courage to write to the MOD and ask for his money back!

[Jackie]

Update - I spoke to the friend in question. Apparently, about 20 years ago, if you wanted info on a WW1 soldier, you had to write to Hayes and a direct descendant had to give permission for the info to be released.

She has got the info that they sent her then - written down, not photocopied - and when the records became available at Kew, she wanted to check the records herself. She was told that they were destroyed in WW2.

Somebody else tried to get some info from Kew, got a letter back saying that they had the records, but needed permission from a direct relative, which could not be got. This record also was not available at Kew. When this person queried it, they were told the same story.

She is now trying to find as many people as she can who got the info from Hayes, and she is going to try to find out if these records are all available at Kew.

That's all I know for now!