Live webchat with the Imperial War Museum on researching family history, Wednesday 18 January 1-2pm

Nonny

My grandfather fought in the trenches in the first world war. I have tried to trace records on line but could only find his conduct record. He had a terrible time like many of his generation and only ever told his mother about it. The story was that he was a machine gunner and was wounded and left in shell hole for dead. He was partly gassed, I presume a lot of the gas went over the top of the shell hole. He was picked up by a German soldier who asked his name and turned out to be his Piano teacher who had taught him in London as a boy! The German soldier made sure that he got some medical help. Grandad then got taken to prison in a stadium in Minden Germany.It was very cold with snow and he had given his coat to someone else who was sick or wounded. When peace was declared he had to walk back to where the British troops were which was a long way.
I would like to find out if this was all true and to find out who his piano teacher was. Is this possible? I know that some records were lost in the blitz inWW2.

This is also in response to Jeebur, JessM, Elegran and Jacey who I think will also find it useful.

There have been a number of queries about how to research relatives who served in the British Army during the First World War. For those of you lucky enough to win one of the units in the Pearson Love to Learn Family History course will enable you to identify your ancestor and guide you through some of the main sources to help you understand their war time experiences.

Here are some quick pointers - you can see a taster of the site at www.gransnet.com/learn-to-live/family-history.

To start off you should try to establish some basic information from sources you or another family member may have at home - have a really good look at photographs, medals, letters and other documents. See if there is any record of a unit or regimental number; were they any officer or an ‘other rank’, did they serve in the army, Navy or Royal Flying Corps or one of the other services? Do you know if they died during the war or did they survive?

Details such as these may help you to identify the correct record when you search through the available sources. Many of these are now available online, so those of you who live outside London don’t have to travel to the National Archives!

Start by looking at the Medal Index Cards – these are a record of all the First World War campaign medals that each individual was entitled to because of their service. The cards are best viewed on ancestry.co.uk and can be searched by name. They are the most complete set of records still in existence of those who served in the military during the FWW. There may be many men with the same or similar names so you may have to look through a number of cards to find the correct one, using any information you have gathered to try and identify the correct one.

If your ancestor died during the FWW then they may be buried or commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. You can search their Debt of Honour register at cwgc.org

Originally everyone who served in the army would have had a ‘Service Record’ recording the details of their army career from enlistment to discharge. Unfortunately for family historians about half the files for men who served during the First World War were destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War. The remaining records for non-officers can also be searched at ancestry.co.uk together with some replacement files compiled when men were assessed for war pensions.

Your ancestors may have been regular soldiers before the First World War or continued to serve after 1918, so you may need to look at other army records, some of which are still held by the MoD, so check the Veterans' Agency website.

Officers' records have not been digitised yet and there are different series of records for men and women who served in other services. National Archives website has advice under 'Searching for a Person' that will guide you through the possibilities.

And of course it's always worth visiting the Imperial War Museum iwm.org.uk to help gain an understanding of the experiences of your relatives.

skydiver

Hi Melanie, I have been inspired to do some research but have been a bit put off by the cost of accessing censuses etc and by the fact that some websites charge upfront. Realistically, how much family research is it possible to do without spending money? Thanks

Hi skydiver,

I quite understand that in these difficult times, we need to be as economical as possible. If you are able to visit record offices such as the National Archives at Kew, then accessing the records is usually free, however you do have to pay for your travel, so depending on where you live, it may be cheaper to use online sources, either by subscription or pay per view.

To try and minimise your costs, do as much preparation as you can using free-to-view indexes and seek advice from your local family history society. It may be worth calculating how many records you're going to want to access so you can choose whether it's better to take out a subscription or pay-per-view before you pay to view specific records.

Digitised records can offer excellent value, for example, battalion war diaries available from the National Archives can amount to many hundreds of pages, but can be downloaded for £3.50.

biggran

Hi,
My question involves military history but is slightly unusual in that it is about my mother.
I know she was in the QAs and after she died I got a copy of her army record as someone said at her funeral that she had nursed surviviors from the Belsen concnetration camp. Nothing had ever been said about that during her life, not even a passing reference so I was somewhat taken aback.

The record shows that she was with a BGH in Ostend or Bruges at the relelvant time and she was certainly there in July 1945 as my parents were married there. Is it possible that she was seconded from the BGH to Belsen or that she nursed survivors who may have been brought to Belgium?

I would say that her service record is not accurate in some important respects and there may be other other discrepancies. Is there any other way of finding out if she went to Belsen or any other concnetration camp or will this remain one of history's unknowns?

Hi biggran,

I can understand why you would want to try and find out more about your mother's experiences. The first thing to check is the number of the hospital that your mother served with. General hospitals moved around and the number should enable you to look for the correct unit history, which would include locations. You would then be able to see whether the hospital had been sent to Belsen whilst your mother was serving with them.

It may also be possible that she continued to nurse after the war and subsequently cared for a concentration camp survivor in the UK.There may be an association for ex-members of the service who may be able to offer more information and the IWM also has material relating to Belsen. Hope you have some success!

Pamaga

I have been trying, without much success, to trace information about my great grandfather Patrick Joseph Leary, a.k.a. Learey or Gannon-Leary who served with the 11th Hussars around 1880. Although he married under the name Patrick Joseph Leary, he seems to have taken his wife, Elizabeth Bridget Gannon’s surname at some time.
There is a census entry for 1881 for Private John Gannon, 11th Hussars and, in the 1891 census, the head of the family is James J Gannon, Sergeant in the Reserve Force Cavalry. However, I know my great-grandmother had a brother James Gannon and am unsure if this is her husband or brother. She herself is not listed in this census but many of the children are listed as sons/daughters of James J. Gannon.
Patrick’s children are listed in the Army Births and Baptisms – and all are recorded under both names Gannon and Leary apart from the youngest, Charles, born 1888, who appears only under the name Gannon. All entries are for a father serving with the 11th Hussars.
I made a freedom of information request to the National Archives who searched WO 97/3274, WO 97/5324 or WO 97/6371 under the name Leary or near variations and 1880s muster books without success. Earlier muster books list one 1864 Private J J Gannon, who enlisted at Hounslow on 14th September 1880. The last entry TNA were able to locate for him was as Lance Sergeant in E Troop in the muster dated 1st April 1890 at Aldershot.
I located a Patrick Leary, Grenadier Guards in document WO97/1864 in FindMyPast. He was discharged from the guards on medical grounds. I am wondering if, having been discharged as not fit for service in 1879, he could have re-enlisted using his wife’s surname? Nothing within the records confirms this. However, his occupation is given as ‘musician’ on his daughter Norah’s baptism is not inconsistent since this was between Private Patrick Leary’s discharge and Private J.J. Gannon’s enlistment and Patrick was a drummer in 1873-74. I thought the number 1864 might be significant as a service number as it appears in the Leary Grenadier Guards record and the
Gannon Hussars record but TNA say this duplication of the number is just coincidental.
TNA didn’t think it worth my while to search earlier musters since there was no evidence of a soldier named Leary or Gannon at the time when his first child, his daughter Kathleen’s birth was registered (1876). Also they were unable to help with respect to records for the Reserve Cavalry given as James J. Gannon’s regiment in the 1891 census.
I am wondering if you are able to give me any further advice with respect to this, especially as I am unclear on who provides information to the General Register Office for Army Births and Baptisms. Is this done by the soldier himself, by his unit or by the priest? Why would both the names Gannon and Leary be on the children’s records if Patrick had changed his name to Gannon and why, indeed, would he feel the need to change his forename as well as his surname?
As you can imagine this is very frustrating for me as Patrick Joseph Leary/James J Gannon just seems to disappear off the planet after 1891. Family rumours abound, e.g. he hit an officer, he deserted, he headed off to the US during the gold rush but, unfortunately, older family members who might have less apocryphal information about great grandfather are no longer with us.

Hi Pamaga,

You have certainly done a very thorough job! I can see how it must be very frustrating.
The only suggestion I have is to check immigration/emigration records available on findmypast and ancestry to see if he did indeed head off to the US (or Australia or Canada...). Good luck!

Zephrine

Hi Mel,
I have a copy of my grandfathers discharge documents but it's not very easy to read. It would appear that he was discharged from M.J.C. (motors) Basra, 21.3.1919 having only served 1 yr 125 days. but had previously been in the Russian Armoured (Car?) unit R.N.A.S. If RNAS Is Royal Naval Air Service can you tell me how Russian armoured cars fit in please? and how can I find out when he joined and if he was conscripted or a regular soldier? Thank you.

Dear Zephrine,

I assume the discharge document you mention is an original certificate you have at home? I would suggest following the general advice for First World War soldiers, (as above!) before you go any further, just to exclude that he may have been in the army.

British troops were certainly in both the Middle East and in Russia at this time. Unfortunately, it is possible for the sames sets of initials to mean different things in different contexts! Without seeing the document it's difficult for me to know. I wonder if your grandfather was a driver, hence the (motors) and (car) references, but Russian refers to the location of the armoured unit.

He could have been conscripted, or he may have been too young to volunteer before 1918. I suggest you check the National Archive's website looking for a person page, which would point you in the right direction for the records of the RNAS. Hope you solve the mystery!

crisisgran

I don't know if this is strictly speaking your area, but I am trying to find out about the experiences of fighter pilots in the Second World War, principally before and during the Battle of Britain. Many memoirs have been written but they are all rather gung-ho! I was wondering if you know if there are diaries or other sources of information that would give a more intimate portrat of people's experiences?

Dear crisisgran,

One book you may not have read is by Geoffrey Wellum called First Light, which is a very honest recollection of his experiences as a very young man.

The Imperial War Museum has published a range of books in the Forgotten Voices series, based on the memories of pilots. We also have personal papers, diaries and sound recordings that may be of interest to you - check out our website.