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Tracing someone's records

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beowulf

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Goaters,

I have just came into possession of my Grandad's Uncle's WWI service medals and papers. He was Royal Naval Division and from what I can glean from his sparse service record card (and downloads from the National Archive) he was either at the Battle of Jutland or maybe (perhaps) the Somme.

I have emailed the research address of the RN museum but thought I would ask here in case there is experience in this group: the man in question was illiterate without an education, leading me to believe that he would not have been a sailor with a useful trade on board ship, so how would I progress this? Is there a place I can go to get access to battalion records for the RND? Essentially I have a joining date, a demob date and a couple of dates where he changed "ships" (although that could be battalions or nominal ship records?). I would like to get to a point where I can find him on rolls and follow his career that way, at least I can tell my Gran where he actually served and what action he saw (if any).

I am going to get his medals court-mounted, re-ribboned and put in a frame with his details as I think that, even although he only has the 3 service medals they are still important family artifacts and should be displayed rather than kept in a cardboard box. A story to go with it would be nice as well!

Ta,
 
techie_tubby said:
Would the MoD medal office have any details?
Click to expand...

Apparently there were only 5 campaign medals issued (i.e. there were no "Somme" or "Jutland" battle medals). I downloaded his service record and his medal record from the Archive site last night and that gave no real indication of anything. The medal record just notes his transfer between battalions while his service records indicate "Tiger" as the ship he transferred to Which is frustrating!

Don't think the actual medal office could add anything to what the NA holds?
 
Cheers Vim, probably won't do that as the address is National Archives and I already bought his records last night individually. Doubt they will add much to that. I think I am looking for unit records now, something like ships books or battalion nominal rolls that show his movement from the admin side. I also bought a book off Amazon that is a RND history to see if I can find anything in there of any formations he may have been associated with.

Suppose the easiest thing is to become famous and then the BBC will do this for me in a "Who do you think you are" episode? :PDT_Xtremez_07:
 
It's quite possible that he was at Jutland, on the Tiger simply as an Able Seaman, and at a later time he transferred or volunteered for the RND - the RND were present at the battles of the Somme in both 1916 and 1918 so he could have been at both Jutland and on the Somme. Is there any indication on his records of a change of his service number from early in the war to later on? This often (usually) happened back then, even upto and including WW2 but I dont know about nowadays, when servicemen transferred between different branches. For instance, my grandfather was in the Royal Artillery from 1936 until after Dunkirk (May 1940) when he transferred to the RASC at which point he was given a new service number.

Maybe this website will provide a useful resource for you --> http://www.royalnavalmuseum.org/info_sheets_RND.htm
 
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Thanks for that, I was on that site last night but must have missed that page.

He only had the one service number as far as I can tell, same one throughout the card. Hist first posting away from the Clyde depot is to what is listed as Victory 4 Battalion so it certainly reads like he was RND from the moment he joined up. His discharge date ties in with the demob of 2nd Brigade in France in 1919. The record I assume is complete because it mentions prize money (so on a ship?) and a stamp to record the issuing of medals in the 1920's.

What I cannot get past is the idea he had no education, I would imagine that the RN had it's compliment of unskilled labour. So he could have been some kind of boarding party soldier I suppose.

Got to say, it is an interesting challenge to unravel all this. I just hope that at some point I can find some supporting evidence.
 
beowulf said:
Thanks for that, I was on that site last night but must have missed that page.

He only had the one service number as far as I can tell, same one throughout the card. Hist first posting away from the Clyde depot is to what is listed as Victory 4 Battalion so it certainly reads like he was RND from the moment he joined up. His discharge date ties in with the demob of 2nd Brigade in France in 1919. The record I assume is complete because it mentions prize money (so on a ship?) and a stamp to record the issuing of medals in the 1920's.

What I cannot get past is the idea he had no education, I would imagine that the RN had it's compliment of unskilled labour. So he could have been some kind of boarding party soldier I suppose.

Got to say, it is an interesting challenge to unravel all this. I just hope that at some point I can find some supporting evidence.
Click to expand...

More likely up to his knees in muck, bullets and shrapnel
http://www.1914-1918.net/63div.htm
 
You need to go the the Royal Archives at Kew, or pay a researcher to do it for you. They hold thousands of records, battalion diaries etc, only about 1% is on the net.

It cost me £80 for a professional researcher, worth every penny, threw up a few suprises.

having the service number is the hardest part.
 
Having just done both my great grandfathers I would suggest using the 1914-18 site as there are loads of lads on there with years of information, a week after I posted just his service number on their forum I had details of every fight, posting and location he had been in. Lots of free gen out there! can you stick his record card on here also so we can see what info you have?
 
Thanks a lot everyone.

And I am hoping that I can get enough to put together a narrative of his service, a mate of mine on my sqn is a bit of a history buff so hoping he will help put together something. If I find anything interesting that is.
 
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