For Evermore - Stories of the Fallen

For Evermore - Stories of the Fallen is a new site to honour those from the Commonwealth forces who lost their lives in the world wars.

 
Part of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the site allows members of the public to submit stories about those who gave their lives during the world wars, and link the story to the individual's casualty page within the CWGC database.

As you submit your story, you can identify the conflict in which the person lost their life, their role (Army, Navy, Air Force, Merchant Navy, Civilian Casualty), Nationality, and even a theme (Women at War,  Post Office, Art and Literature, and more).  You can add images and even video to enhance your story if you wish.

The site even has a tutorial with an instructional video and step-by-step manual to help you post your story.

You can browse submitted stories by conflict, role, nationality or theme, or you can use the search box to search by name, role, conflict etc.

The Ogilby Muster

Over two million historic documents from First World War regiments are free to search on the new website The Ogilby Muster, which  was launched by the Army Museums Ogilby Trust last November. 

 
The Trust holds over two million records, photographs, letters, diaries and more from 75 participating collections, with more scheduled to join in 2022.

The Hon. Mrs Katherine Swinfen Eady, Trustee of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust, said: “With the opening of the TOM Platform, we are given a wonderful key to unlock history. As historians this is an invaluable gift, as family members researching their beloved lost relatives, it is equally as important. TOM allows us to piece together the truth left behind by the subjects, to build up that wonderful pattern of a jigsaw and find the missing fragments of information. It is especially important as it will help us all further our knowledge and understanding of not just the military side of the First World War, but the social aspect of an event in history that affected and shaped this country and the world.”

The Ogilby Muster allows researchers to search the website’s collections for free, with images of each document available for purchase, usually at a fee of £4 for non-commercial use.  Documents on the website date from 1900 to 1929, but the primary focus is on the ordinary men and women who served in the British Army during the First World War.

 

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

First World War Shipwreck Database

Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War was developed by the Maritime Archaeology Trust with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund to record these forgotten traces of the First World War before they are lost forever. It covers wrecks off the south coast, but there are many more in other parts of the sea around Britain.

During the 2014–2018 centenary of the First World War, 322 volunteers spent 1,821 days working on the project, including diving on wrecks, conducting fieldwork and surveys, and recording more than 700 new artefacts.  The project also carried out outreach sessions to schools and the general public, and organised 44 different exhibitions, which were attended by over half-a-million people.

Now, members of the public can search the map or click on the colour-coded dots to find out more information about the wrecks. The website lists details of each location, such as the type of vessel; her launch year; the flag she sailed under; the departure port and destination; the cargo; the name of the master; the number of crew; the date of loss; and the number of fatalities.  Information about the vessel and how she was wrecked is available too, along with an archaeological site report ; where available there are photos of the wreck and of artefacts recovered, videos and 3D site reports.

World War 1 Soldier's Pension Records

Ancestry.com has recently undertaken a major new project to digitize First World War soldiers' pension records, and stage one of the project has now gone live.  This initial set comprises 50,485 records from naval pension ledgers and Merchant Marine cards.  Ancestry has added searchable transcriptions of the records, with 18,270 digital images of the originals available to subscribers of Ancestry's partner website Fold3.  The record release was made possible by Ancestry's partnership with the Western Front Association (WFA).

This first tranche of records consists of cards used by the Ministry of Pensions to monitor payments to injured merchant navy veterans or the families of the dead. The naval ledgers, meanwhile, list married men in the Royal Navy who were lost at sea, and whose widows and children were eligible for pensions.  Both sets of records can include the seaman's name, rank, service number, date of birth, date of death or injury and the ship he served on.  They also list each widow's name, date of marriage, and the names and dates of birth of any children.

In November 2012, the WFA acquired an archive of approximately 6.5 million First World War pension records index cards and ledgers from the Ministry of Defence.  In December 2017, it announced that scanning and indexing of the records was underway, following a deal with Ancestry. 

These records kept track of pensions paid to soldiers, sailors and airmen injured in the First World War and also recorded payments to the widows and dependents of men who were killed.  They are one of the largest surviving sets of records of British forces in the First World War, since many records and individual dossiers were destroyed in air raids in 1940.

Ancestry plans to upload more records before Remembrance Day on 11 November and to complete the set by early 2019.  WFA is also planning to allow its members to access the records via its website without an Ancestry or Fold3 subscription.

WW1 Service Scrapbooks

Personal stories and first-hand experiences of World War I nurses are now available free online via a new website launched by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).  The project was funded by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and brings together the RCN’s collection of scrapbooks, diaries and photo albums belonging to nurses who served during the First World War.

Image from the pages of the Royal College of Nursing's Service Scrapbooks

Service scrapbooks showcases the stories of nine nurses and one VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment), just a few of the over 15,000 nurses who served during the First World War as part of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service and the Territorial Force Nursing Service (TFNS). The project has digitised, transcribed and researched nearly 2,000 pages of photographs, poems, diary entries and illustrations, ranging from 1909 – 1919.
It reveals the experiences of nurses who travelled as far as Greece and Italy to work in military hospitals or occupied the halls of Oxford University and tin huts in the New Forest, whilst treating wounded men who had returned from the frontline. The scrapbooks also contain paintings, sketches and poetry by the soldiers and officers that they cared for, offering a unique perspective of daily hospital life.
This collection brings their history into the digital age and shines a light on the unsung heroes of the nursing profession.