Filed under RAF People, Trades and Ranks: A Method Guide
Where should you start looking?
A trade title names a trained job group, not a single daily task. The same title can cover different work at different stations, so use the trade to narrow the records, then let postings and unit records supply the detail.
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. Where a clue comes from a relative, note who supplied it and when. A clue supplied decades later carries different weight from one written at the time.
What are the common dead ends?
Change one filter at a time, spelling, initials, number, unit or date range, and keep a note of which combinations you have already tried. The most common reason a search fails is a date filter that is too tight. Widen the range by a year on each side before you conclude anything is missing.
If two records give the same person different numbers, do not pick one and discard the other. Numbers change on transfer, on re-enlistment, and on reorganisation. If a published history fills a gap smoothly, be suspicious of the smoothness. Original records leave gaps, and a history that shows none may have filled them without saying so.
How to read this kind of entry
A single sheet can contain several dates: the date of the event, the date of writing, and the date of filing. Keep them separate in your notes. A rank shown without a date is a snapshot, not a career. Find the date it belonged to before you use it to place the person anywhere. Do not carry a final rank, a final trade, or a final unit backwards through a career. Every entry belongs to its own date, and the career is the sequence, not the endpoint.
Where to go next from here
From here, the productive move is usually sideways, into a different record set for the same dates, rather than forwards into the next date. A session that ends with three referenced facts and one named next step has succeeded, even if the story feels shorter than you hoped. If this guide leaves you with one sharp question, it has done its work. Take that question, and its reference, into the next record.
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.