mattj Posted 14 August , 2007 Share Posted 14 August , 2007 Hello all Would I be safe enough to go with the assumption that if there is no 1914 or 1915 star listed on the MIC the soldier did not see any action? Also just in regard to being awarded a pension: I was told in the past that in order to qualify for a British Army pension was it necessary to be wounded ?? I would have thought if you completed your service you were entitled to one? Could anyone suggest any avenues of research regarding pension records? I have looked on ancestry.co.uk at their "complete" ww1 pension archive but there seem to be many gaps in their archive. e.g. going on MICs and excluding KIAs there ought to be at least a couple of dozen "Patrick O Flaherty"s but ancestry.co.uk only list two or three. many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squirrel Posted 14 August , 2007 Share Posted 14 August , 2007 I am sure somebody will be along to answer your questions in full but no award of the 1914 or 1914-15 star means that a soldier did not serve in a theatre of war during the qualifying period for these awards. It does not mean that he did not serve after these periods. No date of embarkation on an MIC means that either the individual did not serve in a theatre of war or that he went after early 1916 IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattj Posted 14 August , 2007 Author Share Posted 14 August , 2007 yes, i just want to confirm that if there's no 1914 star listed i can cross them off the list and help narrow my search. thanks squirrel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete L Posted 14 August , 2007 Share Posted 14 August , 2007 The fact is you could qualify for a pension if you were incapacitated while serving in uniform for any reason, apart (I assume) from when it was self-inflicted. I have a SWB for a man injured while playing football during his UK training that received a pension. Regarding Ancestry, they are just publishing what is in WO364 in Kew. If the records were lost before WO364 was microfilmed a few years ago, they will never become available. You also have to allow for a few mistakes by Ancestry. There have been recent threads were it seems Ancestry will make a record unavailable if it is reported as being wrongly indexed. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punjab612 Posted 15 August , 2007 Share Posted 15 August , 2007 And also bear in mind that WO364 are that small proportion of service records from WO363 which were being worked upon by the 'pension department' when the vast majority of WO363 records were destroyed in WW2. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Watch Posted 16 August , 2007 Share Posted 16 August , 2007 Hello all Would I be safe enough to go with the assumption that if there is no 1914 or 1915 star listed on the MIC the soldier did not see any action? Its also possible that you man had another MIC. Not all that uncommon. Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattj Posted 17 August , 2007 Author Share Posted 17 August , 2007 Many thanks to all for the replies. I understand now that like the service records, most of the pension records must have been destroyed so ancestry are just publishing what is left. So while its still v.useful if you get a result, its more of a lucky dip than a complete archive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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