Service Records Index?

[Pandabean]

I was just browsing through the NA site for the service records and viewed the full details of the burnt documents. It mentioned that there was an indexing system being started. Does anyone know anything about this or if it is being done?


"Work on providing a surname index to the mis-sorts in both WO 363 and WO 364 is being initiated. The pieces affected in WO 363 are WO 363/MISS 1 - MISS 159 and in WO 364; WO 364/4913-4915 and WO 364/5803-5804."

[LesleyB]

Hi Andy
A rummage around produced the following:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/abou ... an2004.htm

16 January 2004, Cataloguing board
1. Update of cataloguing projects
1.26 WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers' Documents, First World War 'Burnt Documents' (Microfilm Copies)). 111 of 159 films had been allocated to editors and were being worked on; 48 films were still to be allocated.

25 February 2005
1.34 WO 363 (War Office: Soldiers´ Documents, First World War ´Burnt Documents´ (Microfilm Copies). This was ongoing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Archives

Frequently accessed documents such as the Abdication Papers have been put on microfilm, as have records for two million First World War soldiers. The originals of the latter were stored in a warehouse in London along with four million others, but incendiary bombs dropped on the warehouse in the Second World War started a fire in which most were destroyed. The surviving third were largely water or fire-damaged and thus acquired the colloquial name of the "Burnt Documents." Because they were mostly too fragile for public access, they were put on microfilm with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund. They are currently being digitised, and should be ready to be accessed online by the end of 2008. A limited number of documents are available on microfiche.

Best wishes
Lesley

[mean_genie]

Surnames beginning with A and B are indexed online, and linked to digitized images on http://www.ancestry.co.uk

You you can take out an Ancestry subscription to view them, and they also have a pay-per-view option.

Work is in progress on the rest, and they will be released in due course.

[Pandabean]

Yes but as far as I am aware that is the people who recieved pensions after the war and does not include many of the burnt documents.

Lesley, thanks for that. Can't wait for them to be online, it will be so much easier. I hope that they include a real good index that will help pinpoint the exact soldier and includes stuff such as hometown.