Genealogy Forum UK

I have ben surprised by the fact that almost none of my tree could have served in the Great War, but I have found a couple who may not have been in reserved occupations. Trouble is I am just assuming they did serve but other than their basic name, DOB and likely location I have nothing to go on. Am I wasting my time even thinking I might be able to find them?

If you have approximate year of birth and county of birth you are 90% of the way.

Got both of those, so where next please?

Example:

John William Wilson b 22/6/1881 Northumberland

You then go to Find My Past and British Army Service Records 1760-1915 and search for John Wilson born 1881 +/- 2 in Northumberland and you get two pages of potential matches.....

Yes thanks, not easy though - using find my past and setting the eyars very specifically to 1915 +- 2 gets me all sorts of stuff form the late 1800s onwards - the search doesn't appear to work very well.

And then there's the 'confirm resubmission' click.... annoying. Though not as annoying as Ancestry's complete inability to provide a decent search........

Ok will stop complaining now!

Hi Roger,
Who are you looking for.

With common names you must choose potential candidates and read the actual images.

The index can only work with the information provided by the transcribers and since this is the ONLY index available, you have to live with it.

With John William Wilson born 1881 Northumberland....have a look at the birth index and there are LOTS of them so naturally there will be lots in the military index.

If you can narrow the birth down to a particular parish then that helps when scanning the results.

I have used the FMP index to find dozens of soldiers over the last 12 months and it the best available, because it is the only one available.

are you still needing help with this Roger?

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