General Chat

I found my g grandad's WWI records on Find My Past, about 10 years ago.

It only took two months for my father's WW2 record to arrive - but that was back in 2015.

I know that the advice we have routinely given to people on these boards over the years has been that they will take "several" months to arrive.

There's wartime records free on An until 8th Nov, I was idly looking for something, not expecting to see the record, and I got a number of military records plus various others, 1939, ER's etc.

It also says it might take up to a year to get them!

Two points which might help some people -

If your ancestor was an officer in the RN, the records at MOD are minimal because everything is handed to the officer when he/she leaves the Service.

It is worth looking to see if the particular regiment has an archive of its own. OH's great-uncle was in the Coldstream Guards and we got a lot of information from them directly. They didn't want things like death certs, the cost was a lot less than £30 and we received the information in about a fortnight. Presumably they aren't as busy as MOD.

It's been the same price for many years, for postal applications.

So, in effect, cheaper now than it used to be!



ADDED:
They're from the MOD, not the GRO as stated in the thread title.

At £30 each - probably plus the cost of obtaining the death certificate - it's not cheap.

Thank you, Mr M XXX

Service records are now all available to be applied for online.

You can apply for records if they were in the Royal Navy (including Royal Marines), British Army, Royal Air Force (RAF) or Home Guard.

https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-service-records/apply-for-someone-elses-records