Family stories about the First World War tend to come in fragments: three medals in a drawer, a photograph in uniform, a name never spoken at Christmas. Turning those fragments into a service history is some of the most rewarding research there is — and some of the most misunderstood, because of one famous fire.
First, the bad news (it's smaller than you think)
In September 1940, a German incendiary raid hit the War Office repository in Arnside Street, London. Roughly 60% of WW1 army service records burned. People hear this and assume their soldier is unfindable.
In practice, the service record is only one document among many. I have produced full service narratives for dozens of "burned record" soldiers. Here's what survives, and what each piece tells you.
The medal index cards: your starting point
Almost every soldier who served overseas earned campaign medals, and every medal generated paperwork. The Medal Index Cards — all of which survive — give you: name, regiment(s), service number(s), the medals awarded, and often the date he first entered a theatre of war. That last detail matters more than it looks: before 1916 it usually means a volunteer, not a conscript.
Service and pension records: the lucky 40%
If your soldier's file survived (the "burnt documents" and "unburnt documents" series), you may get attestation papers with his physical description, his address, next of kin, conduct sheets, wounds, and postings. Soldiers discharged through wounds often appear in the separate pension records, which survived independently — always check both.
The unit war diary: where he actually was
This is the document families find most affecting. Every battalion and battery kept a war diary — a daily, handwritten record of where the unit was and what it did. Your soldier is rarely named (officers were; other ranks mostly weren't), but once you know his unit, the diary tells you where he stood on any given day: which trench, which village, which barrage. Read alongside a trench map, it turns "he was at the Somme" into "on the morning of 1 July his battalion was in the second wave at Fricourt."
If he died: the records of loss
For the fallen, the records are extensive and cross-confirming: Commonwealth War Graves Commission registers, Soldiers Died in the Great War, the register of soldiers' effects (which names who received his back pay — invaluable for confirming family), and local newspaper casualty lists, which often carry the only surviving photograph.
The supporting cast
Absent voters' lists (his unit against his home address in 1918–19), silver war badge rolls for the discharged-wounded, prisoner-of-war records, courts martial registers, and — for the years after — the 1921 census, which catches many veterans in their first civilian job.
A worked order of battle
- Medal index card → regiment and number
- Service/pension record → the personal file, if it survived
- War diary → the day-by-day journey
- Casualty/effects records → if he didn't come home
- Newspapers and absent voters' lists → the local texture
Doing it yourself? Budget a few evenings per record class, and beware two traps: same-name soldiers in the same regiment, and renumbering when men moved between battalions (one man can have four service numbers). Rather have it done properly? This is exactly what my Military Ancestors service covers — from £349, with every record explained in plain English. Either way, start with the medal cards: they survive, and they never lie about the basics.
