Earlier this year, I published the 100,000th British Army photo on British Army Ancestors. There are now over 101,000 photos of British soldiers covering the period 1850 to 1947; that’s close to 100 years of history. From its modest launch in 2017, British Army Ancestors has quickly grown to be the number one resource for finding a photo of your British Army ancestor.
But I’m not resting on any laurels here. There are still hundreds of thousands of photos that could be published here. I am grateful to all contributors for posting photos of their own ancestors – THANK YOU to you all – but I know that what I have published is still only the tip of the iceberg.
Highlights this year? Hitting the 100,000 mark was a milestone that at one stage I thought would be a struggle to achieve by the end of the year. Thankfully, due to the efforts of my back-end support team, we did it with months to spare. I have added a number of school rolls, and you’ll also find photos from the Lives of the First World War website here. I am grateful to the IWM for making these available.
Remember too that whilst the expressed aim of British Army Ancestors is to put faces to names, the site can be used as a quick reference for surviving medal records and service records. The 12m-strong database has been compiled from data licensed from The National Archives, Findmypast and elsewhere. Clicking on the blue button will take you to the data source on external sites where you will almost certainly need to pay to view the records. Following the links from this site help support this site.
Finally, I also offer a research service. Don’t despair if there is no surviving service record for the man or woman you are looking for. It is usually possible to piece together an outline service even if all that survives is a medal record.
I wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2021..
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