Friday, November 7, 2008

I Found My Great-Grandpa's WWI Service Records!

Yes, you read that correctly. I finally found my great-grandfather's World War One service records, and I wasn't expecting to look for his records, as I figured they hadn't survived the destruction caused by the Blitz in World War Two.

I couldn't find them before in Ancestry's British World War One records, but I happened to visit the site earlier today. There, I discovered that Ancestry had updated the service records and were making the available for free viewing. So, I decided to look, and I found his records. As you can imagine, I'm quite thrilled and excited! In addition, I also happened to notice that the other British World War One records are also available for a free viewing as well. I'm not sure why the records are now free, but it might have to do with this story about about a family receiving a World War medal for their ancestor. Either way, I do not know how long those records will remain free, so if you have a British ancestor or an ancestor who served in the British army during World War One, you might still want to check and see if your ancestor's records had survived or not. I hope you are as successful as I was. Enjoy!

3 comments:

wendy said...

Jessica - congrats on finding the service records! Unfortunately all my "folks" who originated in England immigrated way before the 1900s so I have a little extra work in order to find them pre-Ellis Island or UK Census. Thanks for sharing the link though for everyone to check it out!

Nikki - Notes of Life said...

Hey,

I'm so glad you found your Great Grandpa's WW1 records. Sadly, I still can't find my Granddad's.

The WW1 records are free on Ancestry for the whole of this month due to it being 90 years since the end of the war.

Take care and I hope you had a good weekend :)

Taneya said...

congratulations on your find. i love hearing of breakthroughs!