How Do I Research Army Other Ranks?

First checks before you go further

For other ranks, attestation, posting, trade or employment, and discharge entries carry the career. Read them in date order and treat each posting as a dated fact, not as a story.

Fix the person first, then the record. Searching for a record before you have fixed the person is how two people become one timeline. Whatever else you hold, hold the dates lightly until a record confirms them. Family dates are often a decade out, a year out, or attached to the wrong event. If the first search returns a crowd of same-name results, narrow by dates before you narrow by anything else: dates cut a crowd faster than spellings do.

A step by step way through

Let dates set the sequence. When the order is unclear, sort by date and work forward, because records explain the entries that follow them, not the ones that precede them. Do not start with the record that interests you most. Start with the record that anchors the timeline, and let interest follow the anchor. Separate your transcription, your interpretation, and your questions into three columns. A column that mixes them cannot be checked.

• Fix the service dates first, so you know which holder is likely to hold the file.
• Note the regiment or corps and the service number together, exactly as written.
• List postings and transfers in date order, and treat each transfer as a new thread to check.
• Test every later record, medal, casualty or war diary entry, against the personal file before adding it to the timeline.

How to read this kind of entry

An entry that names a place but no unit, or a unit but no date, is a partial clue. Use it to frame the next search, not to close the question. Check whether an entry was written by the unit, by a clerk, or by a later compiler. The writer decides how much weight the entry can carry. When two sheets give different dates for the same event, note both, check which sheet was written first, and let the earlier sheet carry the timeline, with a note of the disagreement.

Common traps in this record type

When two sources disagree and neither can be preferred, keep both in the timeline with a note. A forced choice now will mislead every later step. Change one filter at a time, spelling, initials, number, unit or date range, and keep a note of which combinations you have already tried.

• A transfer to another regiment or corps, with a new number.
• A regiment amalgamated or renumbered, breaking a simple trail.
• A file for later dates that has not yet transferred holder.
• A very common surname inside a large regiment.

The next record in the chain

Check the next record in the chain, not the next story about the same person. Check the holder current guidance before any next step that involves a request, a copy, or a visit. Guidance changes, and a step planned on old guidance wastes a session. The person you started with is the test for every next step. If a step loses that person, it is the wrong step, however interesting it looks.