WW1 Machine Gun Corps

[cnerys]

Hi,
Having had 2 good hits to find ancestors service records who died during WW1, I have tried to follow up one who was injured and was discharged through injury. I haven't come across his service records, but have found his Medal card, which states he was in the Machine Gun corps, but when I google, there are so many!!! How can I find which one might be the right one? The person in question was born in Denbighsire, North Wales, all my other WW1 servicemen were in the RWF.

Kind regards
Nerys

[km1971]

Hi Nerys

If you have found his medal index card then you must have his regimental number. So if you have been searching Ancestry using that, and get no hits, then you can assume his papers were lost in the WW2 blitz. Although personally I don't trust Ancestry's indexing, so I would go through the hits you do get, even if it takes a few weeks.

Here is a link to the MGC - http://www.1914-1918.net/mgc.htm

If you post his number on the Great War Forum a MGC expert may be able to tell you when it was issued. Or you can search for men with similar numbers - change the last digit to a * to do a wild card search on the National Archive's medal site, and use 'machine gun' as the corps. You can then look to see if their records survive. That is about all you can do.

Ken

[cnerys]

Hello Ken,
That's very helpful, thank you. I don't trust Ancestry's indexing either so I'll keep trawling through them , although he had an unusual  name of Gwyndaf Morris, you'd have thought it might have popped up, so maybe one of the many lost. I'll keep looking 
Best wishes
Nerys

[mmm45]

He was discharged with wounds in Feb 1918 he has two cards as you state one for campaign medals the other for SWB his date of enlistment is on the SWB card as well as discharge date.

Ady

[cnerys]

Hi Ady,
Out of interest, what does SWB mean please?

Nerys

[mmm45]

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/medals.asp#campaignmedals

Nerys
Silver War Badge..its on this link above.

Ady

[Pete Keane]

Out of interest, what was his date of enlistment? The MGC came into being after the start of the war, so its possible he was in a different regt and then transferred - just thinking about all relatives being in the RWF.

Pete

[forester]

Pete,

It's 16/5/16, so he may or may not have gone straight into the MGC.

Phil

[Pete Keane]

Fair enough, was thinking about the RND Yeomanry chap you looked at, but he enlisted before the MGC was formed and was transferred over.

In the absence of a Regt. service number other than his MGC one, probably straight in.

Regards

Pete