This list gives an idea of the research that I have
already undertaken - if any kind soul can suggest any further avenues
for me to explore, I would be very grateful. Equally, this list is also
produced in the hope that others will learn from my experience and if
you would like further details of anything listed here, please just let
me know. Included are links to the most useful or interesting websites
that I have come across.
The various sections of this list are:
- The Starting Point
- Colin Fox's Royal
Berkshire Regiment Research Group
- Archives
- Visits to the
Battlefields and Training Areas
- Genealogy
- First World War History
- Detective Aids
- Website Development,
Promotion & Searching
- Miscellaneous
-
THE STARTING POINT
My task would have been immeasurably harder without the work of Norman
Holding as detailed in his books ‘World War I Army Ancestry’
and ‘More sources of World War I Army
Ancestry’ . They have been essential to getting this
project off the ground.
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COLIN FOX'S ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT RESEARCH
GROUP
At about the same time as I started my project, Colin Fox had the idea
to get a group of people together to research into the Kitchener
battalions of the Royal Berkshire Regiment. He advertised for people to
join the resulting evening class based in the Extra-Mural Studies
Department of Reading University where he was a lecturer. Such was the
group's enthusiasm and considerable success in finding relevant
material that they decided to produced a series of books which became:
'Responding to the Call' (covering 1914 and 1915),
'On the Somme' (covering 1916), 'Arras to
Cambrai' (covering 1917), and 'Their Duty Done'
(covering 1918) - copies of which can be ordered from the Department of
Arts and Humanities in Education, University of Reading, Bulmershe
Court, Earley, Reading, RG6 1HY.
It was fairly early on in both our projects that we first made contact
and this proved to be of much mutual benefit. I would particularly like
to express my thanks to this group without whom my project would be
still getting going. I'm particularly indebted to Colin Fox's kindness
and enthusiasm - sadly he died early in 2000 without seeing the final
results of my research that he had taken a keen interest in. The group
continues to research the Royal Berkshire Regiment in affiliation with
the Regimental Museum at Salisbury - you can contact them via their
websites:
- John
Chapman has got a database with information on over 32,000
names of men who served with the Royal Berkshire Regiment in the Great
War.
- Mac
McIntyre does the research for the Farmers Boys website
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ARCHIVES
The following is a list of the archives that I have made use of, along
with the resources that I have found of particular assistance:
- PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE AT KEW
(Their website is a mine of search aids and
useful information - just a continuation of their excellent service.
The PRO is a model for how archives should be run - helpful, always
looking at ways to improve their service, creating the right balance
between enabling access to their holdings and ensuring the
security/preservation of the documents).
- War diaries
- Personal Army Service Records
- The London Gazette
- The Army List
- Medal Rolls
- 'The Roll of Honour'
edited by Marquis of Ruvigny
- THE WARDROBE
- MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL GLOUCESTERSHIRE BERKSHIRE AND WILTSHIRE REGIMENT
AT SALISBURY
- War diaries
- Miscellaneous photographs, memoirs, and records
- LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY
- 'Who’s Who'
- 'Who Was Who'
- Debrett’s 'People of Today'
- Telephone Directories (including BT's Phonedisk)
- Indexes of Births, Deaths, & Marriages
on microfiche
- GUILDHALL
LIBRARY, LONDON
- ‘Crockfords Clerical Directory’
through the years
- ‘The Medical Directory’
through the years
-
BRITISH LIBRARY
- 'The OTC roll - a roll of members and
ex-members of the Officers' Training Corps gazetted to commissions in
the army, August 1914 to March 1915'
- Various school registers and rolls of honour
- You can search the database of their holdings on
their website, but be warned that they are not exactly carefree about
giving out reader's tickets to use the library.
- Now also includes the Oriental and India Office
Collection including:
- The Indian Army List
- Indian Army Service Records
-
COMMONWEALTH WAR
GRAVES COMMISSION
- Including visits to many cemeteries and noting
entries in the registers (before they became available on their
website!)
- Their website now includes the Debt of Honour
register, a database giving basic information about all those who died
in the war.
- BRITISH TELECOM ARCHIVES
- located near Holborn tube station. You need to
book a time if you want to be able to look through their extensive
collection of old phone directories.
- READING LOCAL STUDIES LIBRARY
- Local newspapers including ‘The
Reading Mercury’
- Berkshire & the War
- Local directories and Electoral Registers
- ‘Huntley & Palmers of Reading
1822-1972’ book
- IMPERIAL
WAR MUSEUM
- Search of the Department of Documents
- ‘The Confessions of a Private’
by Frank Gray (ex-8th Royal Berks Regt)
- National Inventory of War Memorials database and
files (for further information, email Nick Hewitt who
is co-ordinating this mammoth project)
- 'Officers Died in the Great War'
- 'The Cross of Sacrifice'
- Regimental History of the Royal Berkshire
Regiment
- The Official History of the Great War
- FAMILY RECORDS CENTRE
, LONDON
- Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths (and
Certificates)
- Electoral Rolls
-
PROBATE REGISTRY
[used to be at Somerset House, now at junction of High Holborn and
Brownlow Street]
- Wills Registers (and copies of wills)
- INNS OF COURT & CITY YEOMANRY
MUSEUM
- Archive relating to Inns of Court OTC
- NATIONAL ARMY
MUSEUM
- Register of Officers’ Effects
- NEWSPAPER
LIBRARY AT COLINDALE
- National and local newspapers
- READING SCHOOL ARCHIVES
- I have been in correspondence with Kerr
Kirkwood, Hon. Sec. of the Old Redingensians Association
- LIDDLE ARCHIVE
- Peter Liddle has made a search of his Archive at
Leeds University for material relating to the Royal Berkshire Regiment.
- COUNTY RECORD OFFICES FOR BERKSHIRE,
SURREY, AND GREATER LONDON
- VARIOUS LOCAL STUDIES LIBRARIES
- NUMEROUS LOCAL CEMETERIES IN ENGLAND
- If you find the right cemetery, the inscriptions
on the gravestones are an archive in themselves (and can save much
trawling through registers and indexes).
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VISITS TO THE BATTLEFIELDS AND TRAINING AREAS
I have visited:
- THE BATTLEFIELDS OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM
twice, accompanied by the books:
- ‘Before Endeavours Fade’
by Rose Coombs
- ‘Battlefields of the First World War
- A Traveller’s Guide’ by Tonie and Valmai Holt
- THE SITES OF GREAT WAR ARMY CAMPS ON
SALISBURY PLAIN , particularly at Codford and Sandhill
(near Sutton Veny), assisted by:
- local historians
- correspondence with Terry Crawford, who has a
lot of information about the camps
- the book ‘Plain Soldiering’
by NDG James - a history of the military use of Salisbury Plain.
- you can get an idea of what this area would have
looked like from The
Fuller Collection of Old Photographs from Salisbury Plain
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GENEALOGY
This bit is split into the following sections:
-
BOOKS & MAGAZINES
There are numerous books to get you started in genealogy. The one I
started with was 'First Steps in Family History'
by Eve McLaughlin. ' Family Tree Magazine
' often has articles that are informative and food for
thought.
-
SOFTWARE
Despite the fact that the recent explosion in interest in genealogy has
been going for a good few years now, it is only now that there is a
genealogy program that I can recommend without reservation. In the
past, some were good in one particular area, but none were good in all
areas. They seemed to be designed either by software engineers who do
not have an understanding of what genealogists might want to do (i.e.
they are quick and easy to use but lack functionality and flexibility),
or by genealogists who do not have the skills to fully implement their
ideas with a good standardised user interface and speedy operation.
Anyway, I have tried a few packages, and the one that I have been using
is The Master Genealogist (TMG) for Windows (see www.whollygenes.com).
It is excellent with respect to comprehensive data entry and source
documentation, as well as having flexibility in customising how the
data is handled and how reports are generated. Steady improvements have
been made over the years - charting was much improved in v4.0, and now
at last the interface has become a joy to use in v5.0. If you are
serious about genealogy, I would say that TMG is the
program to use.
That said, if you want more information on selecting software and
you're wanting to buy software in the UK, my advice would be to go to S & N
Genealogy . Their specialist knowledge means that they can
offer good advice as to which software will suit your needs and,
importantly, they also provide support for their customers. I have
always found them helpful and efficient - their website has a guide to
the genealogy software currently available.
-
NEWSGROUPS
In many newsgroups, there appear to be resident experts who search for
queries within their topic area and seem to spend an enormous amount of
time and effort coming up with answers and suggestions. Particularly
relevant ones are:
- soc.genealogy.britain
- soc.genealogy.ireland
- soc.genealogy.surnames.global
- soc.genealogy.computing
-
WEBSITES
There are many genealogy sites on the web. Here is a selection of ones
that will give you a good lead in (although I must say that I have not
as yet explored their full potential):
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FIRST WORLD WAR HISTORY
This bit is split into the following sections:
-
BOOKS
Some of the best and most informative of my background reading about
the Great War has been:
- ‘The War the Infantry Knew’
by Captain J.C. Dunn
- ‘The Donkeys’ by Alan
Clark
- ‘Facing Armageddon’ , a
collection of papers edited by Hugh Cecil and Peter Liddle
- ‘1914’ , ‘1915
- The Death of Innocence’ , ‘Somme’
, ‘They Called It Passchendaele’ , and
‘The Roses of No Man’s Land’ by Lyn Macdonald
- ‘The First Day on the Somme’
by Martin Middlebrook
- ‘The Missing of the Somme’
by Geoff Dyer
- ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’
by Paul Fussell
- ‘Death’s Men - Soldiers of the Great
War’ by Denis Winter
- 'Britain & the Great War
1914-1918' by John Bourne
- ‘The Old Lie: The Great War and the
Public School Ethos’ by Peter Parker
- 'Testament of Youth' by
Vera Brittain
- 'Poems of the First World War - Never
Such Innocence' , an anthology edited by Martin Stephen.
-
WESTERN FRONT ASSOCIATION
As a member of the Western
Front Association , I received their magazines
‘Stand-To’ and ‘The Bulletin’ .
-
MAILING LIST
- wwi-l mailing list (see their FAQ
for details)
-
WEBSITES WITH ORIGINAL CONTENT
I rate these two sites as by far the best that I have seen in terms of
showing the consequences of the War for individual people - they are
full of original material and are really worth studying:
-
RESEARCH HUBS & LISTS OF FIRST WORLD WAR LINKS
These should get you to most First World War information resources on
the Web:
For details about the Regiments of the British Army (covering all
times, not just the First World War) see www.regiments.org
-
FIRST WORLD WAR PHOTOGRAPHS
-
ORDERS AND MEDALS RESEARCH
-
OTHER INDIVIDUAL FIRST WORLD WAR PROJECTS
- Julian
French 's very personal journey to discover about his
great-grandfather, who was killed on 25th September 1915 whilst serving
with the 2nd Royal Berkshires (interestingly the same day and the same
regiment as are significant to my project, but a different battalion
and a different battle).
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DETECTIVE AIDS:
- BOOK
'Finding Missing People' by Colin D.
Rogers
- CD-ROM
If you want to find people who are resident in the UK then UK-INFO DISK
2000 is the thing you need - well worth the 46.96 GBP I paid for it and
much improved on previous versions (see www.192.com )
- WEBSITES
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WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT, PROMOTION, &
SEARCHING
The following sites were helpful for putting together this website and
ensuring that I tweaked it in the right places:
The colourful little item below is just the business for submitting
your website's URL to the Top Ten Search Engines - much quicker than
visiting all the individual search engines (and the search engines seem
to index them in a shorter time when you use this):
Free
Top Ten Search Engine Submission!
|
I use Google
for searching.
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MISCELLANEOUS
- The
Centre for Life Stories Preservation is a great idea, and
their site is full of links to many personal memoirs, accounts, and
anecdotes.
- I have just read 'The Art of Pilgrimage' by Phil
Cousineau and it struck many chords with me - this project seems to me
to be an act of pilgrimage.
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