Military history

Just wondering, I seem to recall a few on here researching your families military history.
Did you already know regiments and such like, or is there a way of finding out, as my family don't seem to know much about that side.

Any suggestions would be welcome, also where would the Merchant Seaman's records be kept, to access?

Thanks :)

Hi Sweetcheeks,
a good place to start tracing military deaths, is through the commonwealth war graves commision,which lists most,if not all WW1,and WW2 casualties.I think there is a Merchant Navy list,on the National Archives site,though I'm not sure how comprehensive it is!Here's a couple of links!

http://www.cwgc.org/
http://nationalarchives.gov.ukdocumentsonline/
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/memorialsMemori...ull=transcript

Thanks Steve, my lot didn't die in the war, but I would be interested to see where they served.

Thanks again.

A clue might be where your relatives were living around the time they joined up, if join up they did. As many regiments would draw recruits from certain areas. This may give a few places to begin to look for their names.
Are there no clues within the family?

Hi Kathy,
here's another link,which might be more useful?
http://www.forcesreunited.org.uk/

Are you after WW1 or WW2?

WW1 I can check the service records on Ancestry for you, only 10% have survived. All the medal cards are there.

WW2...You need to apply to the Army for service records. You need to be a diect relative. Cost me about £35 6 years ago.

I can dig out the links for applying if you need them.

Merchant Navy records are kept at the National Archives, but are not on-line. If you know which company they worked for (Blue Funnel, Harrison Line etc) the Maritime Archives and Library at the Maritime Museum in the Albert Dock holds some staff records for these companies. Hope this helps.

Thank you for the feedback.
My GGF was in the Merchant Navy, but I have no idea in what capacity, he was a strange one seemed to live separate lives at home and at sea. No paperwork has been found.

Spike I will pm the names if that's ok. I realise you have stuff going on at the moment so there's no rush, you can do it in the wee small hours when your wide awKe feeding the baby :D.

Thanks again to all for the help.

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Originally Posted by sweetcheeks

Spike I will pm the names if that's ok. I realise you have stuff going on at the moment so there's no rush, you can do it in the wee small hours when your wide awKe feeding the baby :D.

.

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PM me them as soon as you can. I will look