England Tips for Determining Army Regiments Where Ancestors Served - International Institute

How to Determine the Regiment
A search for army records is fairly simple if the following facts are known:


 * Full name  Regiment—especially important
 * Rank 
 * Number 
 * Dates of Service

These can be found in:


 * Family memorabilia such as letters, diaries and the memoirs or reminiscences of older family members.


 * Any official document from the army such as his discharge documents.


 * Pension records for the area where he was living after discharge. In addition, the War Pensions Agency an often provide an army number and dates of service. These can then be used to approach the Ministry of Defence for more details.


 * Uniforms, identity tags, pay books, shoulder titles, badges and buttons, or photographs of the soldier wearing them (Barnes 2002-1.) Soldiers typically had their photographs taken in full uniform at the beginning of their active service. Your public library has reference books, for example those by Capewell, Chichester and Burges-Short, R. Perkins, Swinnerton (2001-2), Arthur Taylor, Wilkinson, and Wilkinson-Latham. Museums such as the Imperial War Museum (see Ann Carter, Paterson 1998, 2002-1, and the article by the Department of Printed Books 2001), the National Army Museum (see Humphreys, and Wise and Wise), and private experts such as the Victorian Military Society can also help identify items. Current addresses for museums can be found in Blatchford.


 * Medals are typically engraved with the soldier’s regiment around the rim except for those issued in WWII. The next-of-kin of those 1,355,000, (including 600 women), who died in WWI received a round bronze memorial plaque about 5" in diameter inscribed with the name of the deceased. These were known colloquially as the Dead Man’s Penny and they came together with a printed letter from King George V and a scroll containing the service details, illustrated in Mackay.


 * Knowledge of service in a certain battle or in a particular place in a specific year. Consult Kitzmiller for a listing of which regiments were in that place at that time. Other clues are marriage to a foreign-born wife, or souvenirs from India or South Africa, for example. If a man is known to have served in a particular campaign then consult the Medal Rolls in WO 100 that will give brief details of your man and his regiment.


 * Civil registration certificates, for example his marriage or death, or the birth of a child, especially one born during the active service period such as wartime. These can give his rank, number and regiment, or at least an address from which you can find out which regiment was stationed there at the time (Kitzmiller).


 * Church records of his marriage, death or the birth of a child. Parish magazines are also useful.


 * Census records may cite his regiment, or may give a list of children born in different places from which the regiment may be deduced from Kitzmiller’s lists. The latter also gives lists of military establishments in the 1841-1881 censuses by parish and by establishment, as well as lists of the locations of all garrisons, barracks etc.


 * Probate records.


 * Obituaries.


 * Check with the regiment or regimental museum of the county where your ancestor lived.


 * Check the recruitment areas for different regiments.


 * For those who died during conflict there are rolls of honour and war memorials.


 * Individual gravestone inscriptions.


 * Newspaper accounts of departure and return of local soldiers.


 * Old Comrades Associations such as the British Legion in his hometown may have extensive records of their local men and women. Addresses for these, and for the Western Front Association, and the Land Forces of Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth can be found on their websites.


 * Tall men would favour the prestigious Guards regiments, who had minimum height requirements, or the elite grenadier companies, whilst smaller ones might be found in a Light Infantry regiment.


 * Families tended to be loyal to a particular regiment, thus a father or uncle is likely to have been in the same regiment although it may have had a different name at his time.


 * If your relative worked as a commissionaire at a hotel, theatre etc. in later life he may well have been a retired army man, as this was a particular avenue open to those men. The records of the Corps of Commissionaires could be helpful in providing the name of his former regiment.


 * There is now a union nominal index of ordinary soldiers compiled from the WO 97 discharges to pension in the earliest period (1760-1854) at the National Archives and on their catalogue. This gives names, (with any aliases), place and county of birth, regiment, age on discharge, and covering dates. For WO 97 discharges this refers to the years of enlistment and discharge, and for WO 121 documents it gives the year of discharge. Many soldiers served in more than one regiment and all militia and army regiments appearing in the original document are listed, usually, (but not always), in the order in which they appear in that document, (personal communication, Jenny Bunn, Manager, Friends of the PRO). To use the index click on Search the Catalogue, type in the surname, (and first name if you wish), in box 1, and then WO 97 in box 3. For common names you can type in box 1William Smith AND Leeds, if that is where he was born, or Smith AND 22nd Foot in order to refine your search. The results will also bring up places with the same name, and you can also re-sort the results in date-of-enlistment order.


 * Consult Beckett’s Soldiers Index 1792-1838 compiled from non-TNA (The National Archives) sources such as census returns for barracks, parish registers, and regimental journals and histories; two films starting at.


 * Starting about 1829 each man had an army number, but the system of allotting these has changed over time. During most of the period to 1920 each battalion of each regiment could have men with the same numbers, thus it is essential to know the regiment, and often the battalion as well. From 1920 there was one numbering system for the whole army thus it is possible to find a person’s regiment and records if you only have the number. The original 1829 Order stated that each man was to communicate his army status as in the (now classic) example: Thomas Atkins, 5th Foot, No. 55. Hence the terms British Tommy and Tommy Atkins for a British soldier (Holding).


 * For World War I soldiers consult the Absent Voters Registers for their hometown (Connell), usually now housed in the county archives These list each man’s number in the register, full name, residence (as Qualifying Premises), and description of service, ship, regiment, number, rank, rating etc. or recorded address. By no means all soldiers served in their home county regiment and this is a simple method of finding in which one they did serve.

Infantry Organization
Each regiment of foot, or line, was commanded by a colonel and comprised one or more battalions; if there was only one then the term battalion was used interchangeably with regiment. In wartime some regiments have had as many as 30 battalions. A regiment consisted of 600-1000 men and was divided into companies one of which would be the depot company that acted as the headquarters and was responsible for recruitment and training, as well as for quelling civil disturbances. Despite the geographical name of the regiment this depot could be located anywhere in the UK (Great Britain and Ireland) and typically moved frequently. If the regiment was serving abroad the recruit would join the depot company and then wait until there was a sufficient number of recruits to form a draft that was then sent out to join the regiment (Grant). The remainder of the battalion was the service arm commanded by a lieutenant-colonel and comprised 10-11 companies. Each company had 60, 100 or 120 men and was commanded by a captain and two subalterns, (a lieutenant and an ensign, later called a 2nd lieutenant). Some companies specialized, for example there was often a grenadier company, consisting of the tallest men in the regiment, armed with throwing grenades. Companies were divided into smaller groups called platoons comprising ordinary soldiers called privates.

Cavalry Organization
The colonel of a cavalry regiment commanded squadrons, which were further divided into six to eight sections or troops consisting of a captain, lieutenant and cornet (later called 2nd lieutenant) and about 60 men called troopers. The cavalry was originally divided into horse and dragoons. Guards or (Royal) Household Troops were both horse and foot. Since 1936 the cavalry regiments have all been mechanized.

Royal Artillery Organization
The divisions of an artillery regiment (R.A.) were called batteries and these were divided into sections comprising ordinary soldiers, the gunners. In the R.A. officer promotion was always by seniority, not by purchase.

Royal Engineers Organization
The Royal Engineers (R.E.) comprised engineer officers and men, called sappers and miners. In the R.E. officer promotion was always by seniority, not by purchase. Until 1722 the Royal Engineers was an officer’s unit only, which hired civilians such as smiths, carpenters, wood cutters, sappers and miners, under the generic term artificers, to work under their supervision as needed. In 1787 the Royal Corps of Military Artificers, all of ‘other ranks’, was raised to do the labouring work. This later became the Royal Corps of Sappers and Miners with officers and other ranks and was amalgamated with the Royal Engineers in 1856.

Army Ranks
It is important to understand the ranking system in order to find the records. The primary need is to distinguish between officers and other ranks; The following chart provides a schematic breakdown.

CHART: Main Army Ranks (simplified) 

Prior to 1871 an ordinary soldier signed on for a minimum of 21 years, but after this time shorter service periods were introduced. A private could be promoted on merit to the rank of non-commissioned officer, and this was especially prevalent during wartime.

Officers entered by buying a royal warrant of appointment to a specific rank, called a commission, and advanced upwards by buying more senior commissions as vacancies occurred. Set rates were established, but often exceeded, and frequently involved several thousands of pounds.

Officers were also expected to support extravagant lifestyles and this meant that the main qualification for an officer was wealth rather than competence. The system was reformed in 1870-71, after the debacle of the Crimean War. It should also be noted that an officer sometimes had two rankings, one being his army rank (the highest that he could hold), the other his regimental rank (the particular rank he actually held).

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