Ancestry
Terms: Subscription
Ancestry has an extensive collection of military records from several conflicts including both world wars, the Boer War and the Napoleonic War. Check the card catalogue on the website for a full list.
The Genealogist
Terms: Subscription
This site has several military collections including some British regimental records and Muster Books and Pay Lists.
British Newspaper Archive
Go to the British Newspaper Archive
Terms: Subscription
The BNA is the online digital collection of the British Library and has the largest collection of British and Irish historical newspapers on the web. The collection dates from the 1700s and all military campaigns since then have been covered. In addition these collections contain useful birth, marriage and death notices as well as obituaries.
The National Archives (England & Wales)
Terms: Pay per view for most online records
The National Archives (TNA) in London has a vast amount of military records going back centuries. A few collections such as some army service records can be viewed online (for a fee), but most have to be looked at in person at the TNA. There are some useful guides on the website explaining what records are held and how to use them.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Terms: Free
Find the graves of British and Commonwealth servicemen killed in action from the First World War onwards.
The Long, Long Trail – The British Army in the Great War of 1914-18
Terms: Free
Information about the soldiers, regiments and battles of the British Army in the First World War
The Sandhurst Collection
Go to The Sandhurst Collection
Terms: Free to search, pay per view to download a record
Sandhurst has been the British Army’s officer training college since the 1700s. This website has records of most of the cadets who were at Sandhurst over the years.
Wellcome Library – Royal Army Medical Corps
Terms: Free
This Collection includes over 130,000 digitised pages of correspondence, reports, personal field diaries, memoirs, photographs and memorabilia belonging to the Army Medical Services Museum Trust.
Australian War Memorial
Terms: Free
This Australian Government site has lots of information relating to the conflicts involving the country.
Library and Archives Canada
Terms: Free
LAC has several military collections that can be accessed for free on their website including records from the war of 1812, the Boer War and both world wars.
Archives New Zealand
Terms: Free
The New Zealand Archives has First World War soldier service records available to access on their website
National Army Museum
Go to the National Army Museum
Terms: Free
Plenty of information about the history of the British Army.
Scotlands People
Terms: Pay per view
Scotland’s People has online records from the National Records of Scotland and is mostly used by genealogists for accessing Scottish vital records and census returns. However the site also has Scottish soldiers and airmen’s wills as well as military service appeals tribunal records.
War Memorials Register
Terms: Free
Compiled by the Imperial War Museum, the War Memorials Register currently holds records of 74,000 memorials in the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Memorials often list the names of the individuals they commemorate.
Every One Remembered
Terms: Free
This is a Royal British Legion project in partnership with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Its aim is to commemorate each of the 1.1 million men and women who died during the First World War. At the time of writing, over 760,000 people are remembered on the site with short biographies.
Anglo Boer War
This site remembers the Boer War, 1899-1902 as well as other South African conflicts between 1779 and 1906. It includes a database containing records of over 500,000 soldiers as well as a detailed chronology of the Boer War itself.
Forces War Records
Terms: Subscription
Subscription site containing 18 million personnel service records from several conflicts involving the British military.
Military Archives (Ireland)
Terms: Free
Records available on this site include pension records, witness statements from the war of independence, 1922 Army census and accounts of the 1916 uprising
The Gazette
Terms: Free
The Gazette newspapers (London Gazette, Edinburgh Gazette and Belfast Gazette) are the official publications of record of the British Government. The archive can be searched for free and contains over 350 years worth of valuable genealogical information. Military supplements are regularly published and can also be accessed in the archives. These supplements contain medals and awards information as well as deployment and promotion details.
For more information about this great free resource see my article on The Gazette.
Navy Lists on Archive.org
Terms: Free
Hosted onarchive.org, this is the digitized collection of the British Navy Lists from the National Library of Scotland. The Navy Lists were published regularly from 1814 and contain details of officers in the service.
Naval History
Terms: Free
This site has a large collection of transcriptions of naval records dating back to 1815 with recent records that include the Falklands War.
Happy researching!
