WW1 Ancestry help please

[mjay]

Evening folks
Before I begin to look through Ancestry WW1 records this weekend

Bit of a daft question but do I need ancestors regiment and service number to find them
Thanx
Mandy

[MarkCDodd]

Nope.

If your relative has a "not very common" name then the Medal Card Index is usually easier for finding him than the service or pension records.

So sometimes it is better to search the Medal Card index first.

His Medal Card is guaranteed to exist.

That will give you regimental number with which to search the other records.

Put the regimental record number in the keyword field and tick "exact".

If you put it in the "Regimental number" field the search engine quite often misses it.

Be aware that you only have about a 40% chance of the service or pension record existing.

About 60% were destroyed by incendiary bombs during the early days of the blitz in WW2.

If he has a fairly common name then search service and pension records based on first name, last name and year of birth +/- 5 years.

Do not put in place of birth.

[mjay]

Thanx Mark

I Will take a peek in a mo on ancestry site free access to records and see what I find

Thanx again