The record room
Find the record. Prove the person. Then tell the story.
UK military ancestor research, done in the right order: service record first, unit or ship record second, medals and commemoration last. For deceased persons only, with primary official sources and no lookup service.
Begin with a service
RAF first, Army second, Navy third. Each service section opens with a pillar guide that explains the shape of its records, then supporting guides that answer one question at a time.
RAF Service Records
Start with the service record, not with a story. A Royal Air Force service record for a deceased person is the spine of the research: it should give service number, trade or mustering, postings, promotions and discharge or death details, and every other record you find should be tested against it.
13 guides | Read the pillar guide
RAF Squadrons and Operations
A squadron record tells you what a unit did, not what one person did. Operations record books and squadron histories give the daily or monthly shape of a unit, and a person's place in that shape has to be proved by matching names, dates and roles, never assumed from a squadron number alone.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
RAF People, Trades and Ranks
Trades and ranks are the shorthand of a service record, and they change meaning over time. A trade title from one decade does not always mean the same job in the next, so read every trade and rank entry with its date, and check it against a service glossary or museum source for that period.
11 guides | Read the pillar guide
Army Service Records
Army research starts by separating two questions: which regiment or corps, and which dates. The regiment gives you the unit trail, the dates give you the holder, and until both are fixed, searching by surname alone will mix together people who share a name and nothing else.
13 guides | Read the pillar guide
Army Regiments and Corps
A regiment or corps is not a surname, it is a research address. Once you know the unit and its dates, you can find its war diary, its museum and its published history; without the unit, you are searching the whole Army by name, which is the slowest possible way to work.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Army War Diaries Method
A war diary is a unit diary, not a personal diary. It records what a battalion, battery or comparable unit did day by day, and it becomes useful for a person only when you can place that person in that unit on those dates, which is a service record job first.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Navy Service Records
Navy research is ship research as well as person research. A service record gives ratings, ships and dates, and each ship then has its own log and history, so a Navy timeline is really two timelines that have to be matched date by date.
13 guides | Read the pillar guide
Navy Ships and Logs
A ship's log is a ship's diary, kept for navigation, discipline and events, and it is catalogued by ship and date, not by sailor. It becomes personal evidence only when the service record puts your person on that ship on those dates.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Medals Method
Medals are evidence of service, campaign and sometimes gallantry, and they are researched through rolls and index cards, not through the medal itself. A medal without its roll entry is an object; a medal with its roll entry is a dated record that can be tested against the service record.
13 guides | Read the pillar guide
Gallantry and Citations Method
A gallantry award is a published fact with a citation behind it, and the two are not the same record. The published award notice gives the fact and the date, while the citation, where it survives, gives the action in words, and both need checking against the service record.
11 guides | Read the pillar guide
Free Online Records: Myth Setting
Not everything is free online, and not everything free online is complete. Some record series are free at official archives, some are free only as indexes with paid copies, and some are not online at all, so a research plan that assumes everything is a click away will stall on the first record that is not digitised.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
The National Archives and Discovery
Discovery is a catalogue, not a record collection in itself. It tells you what The National Archives holds, where a record sits, and whether a digital copy exists, and searching it well is a skill separate from reading the records it points to.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
MOD Disclosure for Deceased Persons
More recent service records remain with the Ministry of Defence, and access for deceased persons follows the Ministry's own disclosure rules. This guide explains the shape of those rules in general terms; it does not request records for you and it does not promise any outcome.
11 guides | Read the pillar guide
War Graves and Memorials
A war grave or memorial entry is a commemoration record, not a service record. It confirms death, commemoration and often unit and date, and it is strongest when it is matched to the service record and the casualty record, not when it stands alone.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Prisoners of War Records
Prisoner of war research is a separate trail from ordinary service research, because captivity generated its own records: capture reports, camp records, liberation questionnaires and Red Cross material. The service record still anchors the timeline, but captivity has to be researched as its own period.
11 guides | Read the pillar guide
Home Front and Auxiliary Services
Home service is still service, but its records sit in different places from front line unit records. Home Guard, auxiliary and civil defence roles generated local, county and departmental papers, so home research is often a local archive job as well as a national archive job.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Merchant Navy Records
Merchant Navy research is ship research with a civilian crew structure. A seaman's record is built from discharge books, crew agreements and ship papers, and the ship, not a regiment, is the unit that anchors the timeline.
11 guides | Read the pillar guide
Photographs and Personal Papers
Photographs and personal papers are the most vivid sources and the least reliable on their own. A letter, a photograph or a diary entry proves what it shows on its face, and everything beyond that, a date, a place, a unit, has to be supplied by another record.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Reading a Service Record
Reading a service record is a method, not a first glance. The record is a bundle of forms in date order only if you put it in date order, and its abbreviations, corrections and crossed out entries are part of the evidence, not errors to tidy away.
13 guides | Read the pillar guide
Starting From Almost Nothing
Starting from almost nothing is normal, not hopeless. A name, a photograph, a medal or a single place can each open a trail, but only if you treat the starting clue as a question to test, not as a conclusion to build on.
12 guides | Read the pillar guide
Three habits that prevent most mistakes
1. Match four things
Name, service number, unit or ship, and dates. A match on one alone is a lead, not a conclusion.
2. Read in date order
Put every record in date order before writing a timeline. Filing order is not timeline order.
3. Leave gaps open
A timeline with an honest gap is more useful than one filled with a guess. Gaps are the research plan.