Unlocking Your Family's Service In World War 2

Famous Piper Bill Millin 's
D Day landing at
Sword Beach, Normandy

With the D Day commemorations this weekend, it brings into focus the part played in World War 2 by many people's families.  

How do you find out about the part your family played in the World War 2? 

Well, it is a straightforward process to obtain your own service record or the records of your family who served in World War 2 as members of the UK armed forces.  

The process differs, depending on whether you are requesting your own records, if you are the next of kin of a deceased service person or if you simply have a general interest in an individual. 

The general rules surrounding all service records are that there is no fee for providing a copy of your own service record.  If the member of the armed services is deceased, again there is generally no fee to anyone who was the spouse or civil partner at the time of the service person's death.  This also applies to their parents if there is no spouse or civil partner.  Other people applying for a record will normally be charged a fee. At the time of publishing , the fee is £30.

There may be some other costs as you may need to provide a death certificate or perhaps proof of your own relationship to the deceased person and if you do not have these certificates then you will need to purchase them.

Applications go to the relevant service body and can take some time to be found as they are increasingly being asked for records for family history reasons. However, they will respond and in our experience, they are also good at providing information about the meaning of all the various abbreviations and terms. 

You need to give them as much information as possible to track down the correct person - especially if it is a common name. That's why it is important to know what information is important and Kin Tree can help you with this as we are experienced in helping with applications.

Under the scheme, and in recognition of the duty of care owed to the family of the deceased subject, for a period of 25 years following the date of death of the subject and without the consent of the next of kin, the MOD will disclose only:

• surname
• forename
• rank
• service number
• regiment/corps
• place of birth
• age
• date of birth
• date of death where this occurred in service
• the date an individual joined the service
• the date of leaving
• good conduct medals (for example, Long Service and Good Conduct Medal (LS&GCM)), any orders of chivalry and gallantry medals (decorations of valour) awarded, some of which may have been announced in the London Gazette

After this period, and if it is held, in addition the MOD will disclose without the requirement for next of kin consent:

• the units in which he/she served
• the dates of this service and the locations of those units
• the ranks in which the service was carried out and details of campaign medals awarded

If you have obtained the permission of the next of kin then the 25 year rule does not apply.

For more information on applying or if you want to learn more about the other records available on service personnel contact us at kintree@ymail.com.

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Tracing 19th Century Military Personnel Records

One of our current clients has asked us to look for the details of an ancestor's military service in the 19th century.

It is possible to track down individual details alongside the general details of where people served in the 19th century even though individual service personnel were less well documented then than in later times. We have managed to track down the service details for our client's ancestor and have photos of his ancestor's grave which is located some many thousand miles away from Scotland. 

Many people joined the services in the 19th century but sometimes this does not sit easily with their descendants as it often involved the armed forces imposing rule on other countries' populations. This in itself though is not a reason to ignore this aspect of their lives.

There were many reasons why people joined the military and most people who joined up were certainly unaware of the life that they would lead overseas or the conditions that would be imposed on local communities.  Many were press ganged into the military and it is well documented that people were often plied with alcohol to entice them to take the king/queen's shilling.

Others joined because they believed the recruitment information that said that they would be offered a good life.  This was often true to a point.  Wages in industry could be more but there was an uncertainty to that life whilst the military offered an extended family along with a roof over your head, meals and clothing.  With a population shifting from place to place for work and dreadful conditions in many cities or poverty in the countryside, the military life could often seem like an attractive proposition.

Imagine what life must have been like for these recruits? Training tended to be square bashing without any specialist training for going overseas. They were sent overseas without any idea of when or if they would return.  For the officers, life was generally better but for the ordinary soldiers conditions were often basic and many died from disease or the poor conditions in which they lived.  In some cases, certain postings were seen as a death sentence whatever your rank.   

Thinking about how our ancestors coped with these conditions and what they must have thought of the politicians and senior military commanders who sent them to these places thousands of miles from home can be interesting and there are many documented accounts of conditions available from places such as the National Archives.

If you are interested in finding out about your ancestors' military service - in whatever century, then please get in touch to see how we can help.

Contact us at:

kintree@ymail.com

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Great Resource For Scottish Military Information

The media has been full of details about the forthcoming anniversary of the start of World War 1.  There has been discussion about when and how the centenary of World War 1 should be remembered. As genealogists, what we can all agree on however, is the importance of the individual stories of our ancestors and how their lives were affected by the war.

Kin Tree will be looking at a variety of ways at tracing the military careers of our ancestors over the next few months.  Check back on a regular basis for more information as we build up your knowledge. 

A photo of a panel from the
Denny and Dunipace War Memorial
Photographed by the SMRC

Today we are highlighting a particular group, The Scottish Military Research Group (SMRC) who have been carrying out an amazing project to catalogue the names on the war memorials and war graves in Scotland and in many cases with photographs. There are also photos of many war graves across the world, of those associated with the Scottish military. 

The site can give you the added bonus of information about non military relatives also. There are often details of non family members included in the information the group have collated.

SMRG have also photographed many non military headstones where family members have included a dedication to a member of their family who is buried elsewhere and died during military service.  This can give you the unexpected extra detail of where family members are buried that normally can be hard to track down and corroborate even if the correct names are found.

Grave in St Imoges Churchyard,
Marne France
Photographed by SMRC

Unlike many other projects, all the information and images that they collect is freely available to the public and they carry out all this work as volunteers.  As a professional genealogy company, Kin Tree carries out military research on a regular basis and they are the "go to" site for accurate and in depth information.  We have no connection to them but would urge everyone to support their work.

Researching your family's military connections can give you a fascinating insight into your ancestors' lives.  Kin Tree can help you with this research.  contact us for a no obligation, free chat at kintree@ymail.com