How Do I Find a Capture Record?

First checks before you go further

Find a capture record from the service record, the unit diary for the action dates, and casualty lists, then check prisoner records for the same name, number and unit. Capture is a dated event, so the date is what links the sources.

Keep a note of every filter combination you try, including the ones that failed. A failed search is only useful if you can prove you already tried it. Do not open five records at once. Open one, extract what it actually says, write it down with its reference, and only then open the next.

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. Do not skip the step that checks the filters. It feels redundant when the filters seem obvious, and it is the step that catches wrong persons. A reference without a date, or a date without a reference, is half a note. Both halves are needed before the note can be used.

• Fix the last known date and unit from the personal file before opening captivity records.
• Look for a capture record first, and note the camp and dates exactly as given.
• Use camp records and Red Cross material to fill the camp period, in date order.
• Use the liberation questionnaire, where one survives, as a late summary to check against the earlier records.

How do you read what you find?

Entries in pencil, entries in ink, and entries stamped later are not the same kind of evidence. The medium often tells you when an entry was made. Do not assume a modern map, a modern rank table, or a modern unit list applies to a record from another decade. Check the period source for the period entry.

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. Place names as written at the time may have changed, been misspelt, or referred to a camp rather than a town. A modern map alone will not settle them.

Where this kind of research usually stalls

When every avenue returns the same dead end, the dead end itself is information: it tells you where the record system stops, and that boundary is worth noting. A local archive, a museum, and a national catalogue hold different pieces of the same story, and none of them alone is the whole story.

• A missing status that never became a confirmed capture.
• A camp record that survives only in part.
• A prisoner number that changed on transfer between camps.
• A death in captivity recorded in a different record set.

What should you check next?

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. Use the pillar guide for this section as a map, and the neighbouring guides as the detail for the exact point you have reached. A good stopping point is a referenced fact and a named next record. Stop there, even if the story feels unfinished.