Filed under Medals: A Method Guide
What should you look for first?
A medal roll is the official list of people entitled to a medal, usually organised by unit or corps. It gives name, number, unit and medal, and it is the record that proves entitlement, whether or not the medal itself survives.
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. The unit or ship matters more than the surname at the start, because units narrow a search to a manageable set while surnames, in large sets, do not.
How do you read what you find?
Read for the unit, the ship, or the station as well as for the person. A person entry makes sense only inside the unit entry that surrounds it. Corrections, crossings out and later additions are part of the evidence, not damage to it. A record corrected at the time tells you something changed.
If a word is illegible, look at the same word elsewhere in the file. Clerks repeat words, and a clear instance elsewhere can unlock an unclear one. 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.
Common traps in this record type
Do not mistake a digitised index for the whole record set. An index that covers part of a series will hide entries that the full catalogue would show. If the dates you have are approximate, say so, and search a range rather than a single year. A record filed under a neighbouring year is a common miss. A missing sheet, a closed record, or a file held by another holder are three different problems, and each has a different next step. Do not treat them as one problem called missing.
What to open after this one
Do not start a new cluster until this one has yielded its dated facts. Half-finished clusters produce timelines that mix two record types badly. If this record answered your question, stop and note the reference. The next record should start from a new question, not from momentum.
If you feel the urge to keep reading guides rather than opening records, stop. Guides orient research; records advance it, and orientation without records is drift. The work is finished for now when every entry in the timeline has a reference, not when the story feels complete.
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.