Military

Lest We Forget - Remembrance Day, Robert Hilton Matheson, Australian War Memorial Canberra

 

Over the centuries there have been many wars and the military has always played a part in life.  There are numerous records available online in regards to a range of conflicts including World War I, World War II, Boer War, American Civil War, Vietnam War, Korean War.  Here I have started to list some of the numerous websites that are dedicated to war.

 

Australia and New Zealand

  • Australian War Memorial (AWM) – a collection of documents, unit diaries, memorials, and other information pertaining to Australia’s involvement in war.
    • Searching the Collection – this is the link to the AWM’s search facility.
    • War Graves – provides locations of graves of servicemen and women who died in conflicts.
  • Coraweb – a great collection of links to other sites that hold valuable military information.
  • Department of Veteran Affairs – a collection of nominal rolls pertaining to World War Two, Korean War, Vietnam War and First Gulf War.
  • Defence Department – information as to where to access service records of Army, Navy, and Airforce dependant on the years requested.
  • National Archives of Australia (NAA) – a collection of images, documents, and other government records as they pertain to Australia.
  • National Library of Australia (NLA) – Keepsakes: Australians and the Great War – this was an exhibition run by the NLA in 2015 that highlighted a range of photos, oral histories, and other memiors of WWI.
  • New Zealand History – this site provides information in regards to NZ participate in WWI.
  • QAnzac100 – this site run by the State Library of Queensland provides you with information to search for Queensland soldiers.
  • Queensland State Archives – the archives for the state of Queensland
    • Search the Collection – this link allows you to search the collection by selecting index relevant to the information you require.  They hold records pertaining to Aboriginal War Census Returns, Army Reservists, Boer War Pay Books, Military Service Records among other things.
  • Queensland War Memorial Register – a register of war memorials around Queensland dedicated to fallen soldiers.
  • Virtual War Memorial – this site allows you to search for your WWI ancestor and complete biographical information about them.
  • State Library of New South Wales (NSW) – World War I and Australia – a range of resources relevant to Australia in WWI including Women at War, Soldier Settlement, Gallipoli, Western Front, and much more.
  • State Library of Queensland – A guide to researching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Participation in WWI.
  • State Library of Victoria – Search their Australians in World War 1 collection.
  • The AIF Project – this database operated by the University of NSW has a collection of official documents that it has collated.  You are able to search by name for your ancestor to draw this information together.
  • War Letters – links to free online resources relevant to Australia’s participation in WWI including war diaries, letters, unit records and much more.
  • War Memorials – a collection of war memorials are listed on the Department of Veteran Affairs website.

 

 

 

United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern Ireland

Howard Walker, Staffordshire, WWI Portrait

  • Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX) – has a collection of honour rolls pertaining to service of Jewish servicemen and women who died from 1939-1960.
  • Ancestry.com – Ancestry has digitised the approximately 40% of WWI British Service Records that have survived in two collections: British Army WWI Service Records 1914-1920 and British Army WWI Pensions 1914-20.
  • Army Museums – this Trust has links with over 100 UK war museums with rich content about the histories of war.
  • Award Medals – this site allows you to request replacement medals for awards that are allowed to be replaced.
  • BBC Remembrance – whilst this site is archived, and no longer updated, it still contains a wealth of information in regards to WWI.
  • Britain at War – a comprehensive site run by Ron Taylor that includes rolls of honour and essays on various war battles.
  • British Army List – contains the British Army Lists from 1714 – 1946.
  • British Army War Diaries – this provides you with links to Unit War Diaries for 1914-1922.
  • British Battles – this site provides you with information regarding British battles that occurred from the 18th Century to the end of the 19th Century.
  • FindMyPast – The Gillies Archive  – FindMyPast has over 2000 names that are listed in the Gillies Archive, a database from 1918-1925 of people who received plastic surgery.
  • First World War – this site provides a multimedia approach to viewing WWI with posters, photo, audio and video available to view.
  • Forces War Records – a collection of information pertaining to many of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century wars, as well as service records for British soldiers.
  • Imperial War Museums – this website allows you to explore nearly 1 million items collected by the museum since 1917.
    • UK War Memorials – a search facility to identify locations of memorials from all wars across Britain.
  • Military Lists – contains Scottish official Army List from 1714, Navy List from 1904, Air Force List from 1919, amongst other collections.
  • National Army Museum – based in Chelsea, London, this museum has a vast online record collection including many images.
  • National Service Memoirs – this site is owned by Alan Parkinson who posts his experiences of compulsory national service.
  • Operation War Diary – this project is digitising unit war diaries in order that this information will be readily available for researchers in the future.
  • Roll of Honour – listing of many WWI war memorials.
  • Scarlet Finders 0 this site contains war diaries from both WWI and WWII, nominal rolls from 1939-1940 pertaining to British Military Nurses.
  • Scots at War – this website is maintained by the Scottish National War Memorial after the Scots at War Trust ceased trading.  The site contains all the information the trust gathered from amateur and professional researchers, the general public, as well as serving and retired military soldiers.
  • Scottish National War Memorial – a collection of the Scottish militaries contribution to WWI, WWII, and other conflicts.  It contains rolls of honour, details of women who served, as well as casualties and Navy records.
  • Second World War – general information about key people, places, and statistics pertaining to WWII.
  • Soldier’s Wills – The National Archives of Ireland has a collection of wills for soldiers who died serving in the British Army.
  • The Great War 1914-1918 – trace your WWI British soldier.
    • WW1 Medals – a guide to the British campaign medals of WWI.
  • The Long, Long Trail – this website explores WWI  in great detail and has information pertaining to campaigns that individual regiments and battalions fought.
  • The National Archives – this UK based archives holds many different collections relative to the military and wars.
  • The Scottish Military Research Group – this site provides users with information to search for their Scottish military ancestors. as well as other general information pertaining to Scottish war service.
  • Wartime Memories – this project allows the public to submit stories, photos, and documents pertaining to WWI and WWII.
  • The Guards Museum – this London Museum holds information and artefacts in relation to Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards.
  • The Western Front Association – this subscription website provides users with information regarding the Great War.  They have a publication as well as many events that members are welcome to attend.
  • UK War Memorials – a centralised site to list war memorials around the UK.
  • Women at War – this website is dedicated to women and the work they performed during WWII.
  • World War 2 – has a detailed timeline as it pertains to WWII as well as an index of war movies.

 



United States

Worldwide

  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission – holds over 1.7 million records in its database, of British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died during WWII.
  • History of War – This Military History Encyclopedia on the Web covers the history of many wars from around the world.  It does not just cover the more common ones, WWI and WWII, but many lesser known ones.  You can search by country, war, or time.
  • In From the Cold – this site picks up the “strays”, the 1500 personnel not identified by the CWGC for commemoration.
  • Lives of the First World War – a site that allows users to contribute to the content of the site by sharing images, stories, and facts about the soldier in their history.
  • The International Encyclopaedia of the First World War – a wealth of information around WWI from all around the world.
  • The War Graves Photographic Project – this project aims to photograph and make available on the internet the graves and memorial listings for every casualty of war since the outbreak of WWI.
  • The World War I Document Archive – a collection of contemporary first and second source documents relating to the Great War period from 1890-1930.