I’ve recently added records for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission 1914-1921 to the British Army Ancestors site. That’s 738,386 records of men and women who served with the British Army or Royal Flying Corps who lost their lives during the First World War and immediately afterwards. In each case, these new records include the same […]
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Every day on the British Army Ancestors Facebook page I take time to commemorate a British soldier. This post will look at three of the men I have remembered recently; from left to right: William Polge, William Polliitt & Walter Scrivener. William Edwin Polge Second Lieutenant William Edwin Polge of the 7th London Regiment was killed […]
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The McCorquodale Group, founded in 1846 by George McCorquodale when he established McCorquodale & Co Ltd in Newton-le-Willows, was a printing company which, by the time of the First World War, had also opened up branches in Glasgow, London and Wolverton. There were also affiliated companies in Crewe, Flint, Liverpool and Manchester. The McCorquodale Roll […]
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When I was mapping out the functionality of the British Army Ancestors website, I was very clear about one thing: the search functionality had to be both flexible and fast. I believe I have achieved both ends. Fundamental to the flexibility of the site was the ability to use wildcard searching. When it works well […]
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Don’t assume that if there are no surviving army records for your British Army Ancestor, that all is lost. Nothing could be further from the truth. The man on the left of this photo is 5480 Rifleman J E Deakin, a keen athlete and a successful one at that. The photograph appeared in the Rifle […]
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Finding a photo of your soldier ancestor may sound like an impossible task but you can certainly improve your chances of success. One thing is sure: our soldier ancestors were not shy of the camera. I can almost guarantee that at whatever point in time you may have happened upon this article, you will find […]
Read more...Earlier this year, I published the 100,000th British Army photo on British Army Ancestors. There are now over 101,000 photos of British soldiers covering the period 1850 to 1947; that’s close to 100 years of history. From its modest launch in 2017, British Army Ancestors has quickly grown to be the number one resource for […]
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This superb photograph of men of the 1st Battalion, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) was taken when the battalion was stationed at Portsmouth in 1894. It is of interest to me for two reasons: The men are all named and as a result of this I have been able to match up 10 of the names to […]
Read more...Alexander Harvey, Frederick Brown and Robert Pitman were all remembered by me last week on the British Army Ancestors Facebook page. William and Robert were family men who died serving their King and Country during the First World War. Frederick served during the Second World War and he survived but never spoke about his time […]
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On the 21st July 1917, a year and a day after the 20th (Public Schools) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers had been badly mauled at High Wood, a small band of survivors sat down for lunch. The men were eating at the Grand Hotel, Dover; a fairly grand meal for wartime of boiled Scotch salmon, roast lamb […]
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