Researching World War One records

From Linking experiences of World War One
Revision as of 06:33, 20 November 2014 by Mia (talk | contribs) (Australian and New Zealand records: Added more NZ resources)

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It can be hard to know where to start looking for World War One records. Results will also vary by country, which resources have been digitised and how much information survives about each person.

Many soldiers were born in one country, but served in another, so you might need to search multiple countries. Copying resources over to this page is very much work in progress and will be biased towards the research I've done so far, but I've found the following resources useful. If you know of any I've missed, please just sign up and edit the page to add them. If you'd rather not edit the page yourself, you can email me via this form.

General

Australian and New Zealand records

Many New Zealand records are held by Australian institutions.

The Australian War Memorial has useful background information on Researching Australian military service: First World War, 1914-1918 and Researching Australian military service: introduction.

Looking for specific names

British records

The The Long, Long Trail site is useful for any researcher but is particularly focused on 'The British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918'. It includes:

The Great War Forum is also an incredible resource - your question may already have been answered.

The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives has a useful list of Military abbreviations including terms on British and Commonwealth orders, decorations and medals and a 'glossary of foreign terms'.

Canadian records

Canadian Great War project

Indian records

Searching for specific names

Irish records