Did My Ancestor Serve in the British Armed Forces?



This is a working spaceholder for adding something that sits above the things the FS Library England team has been working on relating to British Military Records. This is an outline of what we are working on, but we haven't yet thought through how we will get to these pages or where they will be inserted.

This page is designed to help you if:
You think your ancestor might have served in the British Military and you want to verify it or

You want to learn how to find out if your ancestor might have served in the British Military.

The following items relate to discovering, analyzing, and verifying potential military service of an individual in Great Britain.

Self-Directed Reference Interview (or Research Technique)

 * 1) What do I want to know (objective)?
 * 2) What do I already know, have, etc.?
 * 3) How do I “know” that (source)?
 * 4) What else do I know but Didn’t Think was Important?



Things Which Indicate a Potential Military Connection

 * I have a tradition or artifact of military connection
 * I have a civil certificate w/military indication
 * I have them in the census w/military indication
 * I have a church record or headstone w/military indication

Assessing Reliability
Once you’ve re-examined your source to make sure you have gathered every possible clue and considered what else you might have overlooked, you will want to consider how reliable the information is and look for possible other sources to confirm what you have.

Physical items
 * An original document or artifact is more reliable than an abstract, later recollection or transcription someone else did.
 * If a copy, check to see if the whole artifact was copied (is there another page, part, or?)

Non-physical items
 * Is the interview or story told by someone who was an eyewitness to the event(s) in the source? (If not, may want to see if an eyewitness recorded the story or is available to tell it)
 * Was the story recorded by the witness shortly after the event occurred (the longer the time, the less reliable). When far removed in time, it is advisable to seek other witnesses or corroborating source.