Filed under What Is Really Free Online? A Method Guide
What should you look for first?
Service museums offer free online collection searches, histories and research guidance, with depth varying by museum. Museum sites are best for context and object records, while personal service files remain with the official holders.
A person who served in two periods, two units, or two services will look like two people until the threads are joined by dates and numbers. The strongest clue is often the least glamorous: a number, a date, a place. Glamorous clues, badges and stories, point in many directions at once. Where the clue is thin, say so in your notes. A thin clue handled honestly leads to a careful search; a thin clue dressed up as a fact leads to a wrong person.
How to read this kind of entry
Abbreviations are the easiest place to go wrong, because the same letters can stand for different things in different periods and different services. A record that names several people should be read for all of them, not just for yours. The others are what prove, or break, the identification.
A word that looks familiar may have meant something narrower, or something entirely different, when the record was written. What looks like a sudden posting, promotion or move often has its explanation in a correction, a marginal note, or an entry on the next sheet.
What are the common dead ends?
If the trail ends at a particular holder, the next step is to ask that holder where the record went, not to search the same catalogue harder. If every search returns the same wrong person, stop searching and re-examine the filters. Repeating a search with the same filters will repeat the same result.
- A record that is not digitised at all.
- An index that covers only part of a series.
- A transcription error that hides the right entry.
- A free site that stops where the record itself begins.
The order to work in
Write down the step you are on, in plain words, before you take it. A step you cannot state plainly is a step you do not yet understand. Start from the reference, not from the search box: know which record you are about to open, and why, before you open it.
- Start from the official holder catalogue or site for the record you need.
- Note whether what is free is an index, a transcription, or a digitised copy.
- Check a transcription against the digitised copy or the catalogue entry before relying on it.
- Plan paid steps, such as copy orders, only after the free finding aids have fixed the reference.
The next record in the chain
A next step that is easy is not necessarily the right one. The right next step is the one the timeline needs, and it is often the awkward one. Before you open the next record, write down what you expect it to show and what would surprise you. That note is what turns reading into testing.
A good next step narrows the search, rather than widening it. If the next record could be anything, the question is not yet sharp enough. If this guide has made the next record obvious, it has succeeded. Go to that record, and take the question with you.
Primary sources for this guide
This guide keeps its claims general and points to the official holders, so the holder itself is the place to check the current position. It is general educational information only, not personal professional advice, and it offers no record lookup service and no determination of any individual's service.