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General => Armed Forces => Armed Forces Resources => Topic started by: Woostie on Wednesday 04 November 20 23:40 GMT (UK)
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Hi, I live in a small village in north Wales and we are hoping to have a community day next year to celebrate the history of our village. I have been appointed as the researcher due to my interest in history/genealogy and whilst I am quite experienced in researching my own family, taking on the history of the village is quite daunting.
I'm planning to do a section on WWI and WWII and am really looking for advice as to the best websites and resources to use as I realise this could be very time consuming and don't want to waste valuable time on websites which have little information or are not user friendly.
So far I have a list of names of men who would be the right sort of age to have served in WWI from the census records. But obviously that only gives me names, addresses and approximate years of birth. A lot of the names are similar so trying to pick out which is the correct 'John Jones' out of a great long list when I don't have exact dates of birth etc could be frustrating to say the least. I'm guessing that the most likely service they would have served in would be the Royal Welsh Fusiliers but I doubt that would be exclusive.
So I look to you all for any advice you might have about how to approach this if you have done anything similar and also where should I concentrate my efforts?
Thank you :D
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Re WW1. Over 60% of service records were burnt during the WW2 blitz. Those that survived are on the subscription sites such as Ancestry or FindMyPast
WW1 pension records are also on the above sites
The Medal Roll Index is intact and can be found on the above sites but that will only give you name/rank/service number which means you have to know that info to determine the right entry - especially with common surnames such as Jones/Smith/Williams etc.
WW2 records are still with the MoD so you would only perhaps be able to compile a FH rather than a service background and again - it's dependant on available info
If any died in either war - then www.cwgc will have more details but a lot of the entries are dependant on what was known about the deceased
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Is there a local war memorial to at least give you names of those that did not survive?
MaxD
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First check to see if anyone else has already done it or part of it?
Hist Society(ies) / Local / next biggest town / County / etc
Ray
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Hi
Holyhead / Caernavon / Aberystwyth all have worthy resources ("museums").
Aber. has copies of ( all ) Church Magazines
Also worth contacting The British Legion
Ray
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Checkout:-
The Home Front Experience in Llandudno
Cheshire Military Museum in Chester.
The IWM North in Salford will be a great place to learn more about the periods in question.
I would also checkout what Civil Defense was in operation and how the village contributed to it.
Still on the military theme check what Militia activities there were in the 1800’s, my own 2xGreat Grandfather was in the Monmouth Militia and eventually enlisted in the 36th Foot. Militia activities was also a way of supplementing income.
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I think I would start by searching the military records on FindMyPast and Ancestry with just the village name as the search term (as a keyword). Also search the newspaper archives on FindMyPast/BNA for the village name. And see what comes up on a google search for the village name and WW1/WW2.