6 Brothers not one served in WW1 Is that unusual?

[Chilternbirder]

My early searches for both WW1 and WW2, IIRC at Forces War Records, produced no data for parents or grandparents, all of whom served. It was only when I started using Ancestry that I found one grandfather's medal card.

[Treetotal]

I never could find any evidence of my Grandfather Edward or two of his Brothers being  being involved in WW1 until I found that one of his Brothers was awarded the MM. I looked on Find My Past newspapers and found the attached article. So lack of evidence doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't serve.
Four sons fighting in the war and they all came back.
Carol

[PrawnCocktail]

Could they have been in the Territorials? Territorials did 4 years service and 1 more on reserve. Once completed they would have been "time expired" & the rule at the time was these men couldn't be recalled even in wartime. This changed in 1916, but I think they weren't sent abroad even then, so there'd be no medal cards.

And since the Luftwaffe managed to destroy some of the records during WW2, there's nothing to look at. We didn't even know my grandfather served until we found his cap badge! He was a Terry pre-war, never went abroad even when he did join up after 1916, so the only record we found was his Territorials one.

[clairec666]

There's a possibility that they did serve in the war, but their service records haven't survived (more than half were destroyed).
I'm no expert in military records - maybe someone else can enlighten me? - but if the records were arranged by regiment, and all your grandfather's brothers served in the same regiment, then it's less of a coincidence that none of their records survived.

[Johnf04]

This thread prompted me to have another look at my great uncles. One, born 1890, didn't marry until 1921. I've now found a pension record card, and medal card, that are fairly certainly his.

[jaywit]

I am still struggling with this.

 Looking for a medal card for one of them there are 34 possible. Not one of them is the appropriate county regiment, so no chance of working out if any of them are correct.

[Chilternbirder]

I am still struggling with this.

 Looking for a medal card for one of them there are 34 possible. Not one of them is the appropriate county regiment, so no chance of working out if any of them are correct.

Only 34? I wish I had that few to go through for my paternal grandfather!

[Johnf04]

I found a pension record card, which had my great uncle's year of birth, and where he lived. This gave me his service number.