England Army Records for Family History (National Institute)

Army Records for Family History
The official national archives for the British defence forces is the Public Record Office at Kew, London and major portions of the records are on microfilm available through your local FamilySearch Center. The army cavalry, infantry and marines were under the Commander in Chief, but the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers came under the Master General of the Ordnance thus their records were kept separately and are hence in different classes at the Public Record Office.

At the Public Record Office there are four main sources of army documents corresponding to their institutional authors:


 * Colonial Office (lettercode CO)= Correspondence and records from Great Britain to the colonies.


 * Home Office (lettercode HO)= Internal correspondence.


 * State Papers (lettercode SP)= Correspondence by Royal Officials. Useful for the period 1640-1700s.


 * War Office (lettercode WO)= This is the single most important source for military records.

Each class of records has a class number, for example the huge class of Soldiers Documents (or Discharge Papers) created by the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which came under the War Office is class number WO 97. A division of this, for example the records for the 13th Foot Regiment for surnames Abb-Car for the years of discharge 1760-1854 has the piece number WO 97/341. A class may contain more than one kind of record; and to make things more confusing, like records may be in different classes! Full details of this system and its traditional and computerized usage can be found in Bevan.

Much of The National Archives records of most use to family historians is on microfilm through FamilySearch Centers and can be found under FHLC-LOCALITY-GREAT BRITAIN (or ENGLAND, IRELAND, SCOTLAND, WALES etc.). MILITARY RECORDS and MILITARY RECORDS-ARMY. The list for GREAT BRITAIN is more extensive than that for ENGLAND for example, but there are different items on each. A comparison of subcategories of MILITARY RECORDS and the numbers of items listed under Great Britain and England is presented in below. The researcher should investigate all listings, and likewise those for Scotland, Ireland, Wales and other countries as appropriate.

CHART: Comparison of FHLC Lists of Military Records for Great Britain and England  (FHLC March 2001 edition on CD)

There are also relevant items listed under Biography, Concentration Camps, History, History-Army, Military History, Obituaries, Occupations, and Officials and Employees.

Since the regiments were only numbered in 1751 it is difficult, but not impossible, to trace both officers and men before this. As this volume is intended for those beginning their searches it will not give details of pre-18th century records.

Only the main records will be discussed here; there are hundreds of others, many of which are microfilmed. Many sequences seem to be split into several entries on the FHLC thus persistence is needed. Many people find the fiche listings easier to browse through than the electronic versions. The fiche addendum of Kitzmiller’s book ''In Search of the Forlorn Hope. A Comprehensive Guide to Locating British Regiments and Their Records 1840-WWI'' is invaluable in providing comprehensive lists of film numbers by type of record for the most used ones.

The FHL did prepare a list of all its British Army holdings in 1978 but many books, indexes and films have been acquired since that date. The student should become familiar with the The National Archives (TNA) indexes and use these in conjunction with the FHLC and the TNA Records Information leaflets. A list of relevant ones is provided in the Further Reading and they can be downloaded from the TNA website.

Individual Regimental Museums often hold information not available at the Public Record Office, particularly on officers. The three oldest regiments of Foot Guards—the Grenadier, Coldstream and Scots Guards—also possess some very good records.

Two regimental history bibliographies, by R. Perkins (Regiments and Corps of the British Empire and Commonwealth 1758-1993: a Critical Bibliography) and Arthur White (A Bibliography of the Regimental Histories of the British Army.), have been issued on CD-ROM and this greatly simplifies finding the appropriate volume (Hook 2001-1). The Victorian Military Society can often help with problems during the 19th century, particularly Boer War Graves, the latter also detailed by Wood Latest on Boer War Indexing in Family Tree Magazine Vol 14 #12, page 14 (1998).

The history of the British Army from 1485 to date is displayed at the National Army Museum and although it does not contain records of individual soldiers it is a great source of information and illustrations (Humphreys). There is a huge amount of material covering 20th century conflicts in the Imperial War Museum in London (see article by their Department of Printed Books) and a new branch is now open in Manchester. It is known that the DHSS (Dept of Health and Social Security) has 42 miles of records regarding former forces personnel, civilians injured in air raids, claimants for war pensions and much more. How much is accessible is not known, but a former manager has commented on them.

Army Lists and Hart’s Army Lists are being reprinted on fiche by M.M. Publications, ( brief details in Raymond’s British Genealogical Microfiche (1999-1), also see TNA leaflet M17). Examples of fascinating articles written about soldiers’ include those by:


 * David J. Barnes (2002-2) on the Boer War.
 * Eric Bugden on searching for records and class WO 121.
 * Helen Bultitude on permanent marking of soldiers who were deserters or bad characters.
 * Peter Cleaver on a soldier not found in WO 97.
 * Erik Gray on a soldier search carried out by one of the ‘great’ army researchers.
 * Valerie Francmanis on a Hussar at Waterloo.
 * Richard Henry Horne on the British Soldier (1840-1), and the Chelsea Pensioner (1840-2).
 * Francis Howcutt on the India Burmese Campaign, a court martial, and a hospital sergeant at the Royal Military Academy.
 * Norman Hurst (1995) reviews narratives about the Napoleonic Wars.
 * George Mortimer on searching for records starting with a War Memorial.
 * J. Oxenham on a Victoria Cross won at Lucknow.
 * Stuart Reid on an 18th century soldier.
 * Sheila Gray on the Boer War.
 * Iain Swinnerton on recruitment (1999), and women soldiers (2000).
 * Heather Vallance on the Boer War.

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