New WW1 Pension Records on Ancestry

Ancestry has added to its collection ‘WWI Pension Ledgers and Index Cards, 1914-1923’. These records had already included the Naval Ledgers, Merchant Marine Cards and PRC Ledgers.  The new trance of records, ‘Other Ranks Died’, covers men below the rank of officer who died while serving in the army, navy and air force.

This set of records, amounting to approximately one million cards, relate to pensions claimed from the British Ministry of Pensions for 'other ranks' (not officers) who were killed or died in the Great War.  This constitutes a full set of records and has not been subject to any weeding (as has been the case in other records preserved by the Ministry of Defence). Therefore a card should exist for every soldier, sailor or airman who died in the war provided his next of kin claimed a pension. If there was no pension claim, no card will exist.  The website also notes that pensions of men who survived the conflict will be part of a later release.

The cards enable the identification of individual servicemen via reference to either (1) his dependent/next of kin (for example wife/parents) and/or (2) a home address. Therefore, for servicemen with common names (for example Smith and Jones) researchers can now identify the relative they are looking for, as these extra details will give certainty where none existed with other archived records, such as the Medal Index Cards.

You may be able to find the following information (where available):

• Name
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• Date of Death
• Date of Injury
• Details of dependents or next of kin
• Date of Marriage
• Place of residence
• Rank
• Ship
• Regimental Number
• Regiment or unit