Filed under Medals: A Method Guide
Where should you start looking?
The service record comes first, because it fixes the person, unit and dates. The medal roll then adds entitlement, and the two together are stronger than either alone.
The record you need is usually the one for the dates you have, not the one with the most dramatic story attached to it. The catalogue entry is a record in its own right. Read it fully before you open the record it describes, because it tells you what you are about to see.
Making sense of what you find
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. What a record omits can be as informative as what it includes, but only if you know what that kind of record usually includes. Learn the form before you judge the gap.
A summary page at the front of a file is a later compilation, and compilations introduce errors. Use it as a map, and verify its claims sheet by sheet. If an entry seems to contradict the previous entry, read the entries between them. The contradiction often dissolves into a transfer, a posting, or a correction.
Where this kind of research usually stalls
The quietest dead end is a record you never open because a search snippet looked irrelevant. Open the catalogue description, not just the snippet, before you dismiss it. The common dead ends here are a shared name, a variant spelling, a thin record for the dates you need, and a unit that cannot be fixed from the clues available.
- A medal never claimed or never issued.
- A roll entry under a variant spelling or a different number.
- A clasp that looks obvious but is not on the roll.
- A forfeiture or return that removed the medal from the record.
How do you work through it step by step?
A useful habit is to write the question at the top of your notes before each step, and the answer, with its reference, underneath it when the step ends. If a step produces nothing, record that nothing. A documented negative result is part of the research, and it stops the same step being repeated blindly. Note disagreements as you find them, rather than resolving them on the spot. A disagreement noted early can be tested later; one resolved hastily cannot.
- Find the roll entry first, and note its reference, the medal, and any clasps shown.
- Check name, number, rank and unit on the roll against the personal file.
- Use the index card, where one survives, as a finding aid to the roll, not as a replacement for it.
- Test any family medal story against the roll before adding it to the timeline.
The next record in the chain
A useful discipline is to state the next step as a record, a reference, and a question, in one sentence, before you leave this guide. The neighbouring guides are not a reading list. They are the next links in a chain, and the chain order matters more than the reading order.
The related guides at the foot of this page link back to the pillar for this section and to the neighbouring guides, so you can move through the cluster without losing the person you started with. A research project ends, properly, not with a flourish but with a referenced timeline and a list of questions still open.
Primary sources for this guide
Everything here is kept general and tied to official holders, so check the current position with the holder for your own case. The guide is educational information only: it is not personal professional advice, it is not a lookup service, and it settles nothing about any one person's service.