War identification?

I need some help please and am hoping someone knows more about army records than I do? I have been unable to identify my grandfather's WW1 military records but I do know his service number for WW2 and the fact he was a Bombardier in the Royal Artillery Training Regiment. This may sound a silly question but I will ask it ! If you were in a certain regiment in WW1 did you tend to go in to the same one in WW2? I have been told my grandfather was in the Royal Artillery in WW1 and I know he served in Mesopotamia, and Egypt also I believe. Were the regiment numbers from both wars connected? Would I be able to identify my grandfather's records in WW1 from the ones in WW2? This may sound really daft to those in the know but if I don't ask I wont know! I am so frustrated, especially with all the commemorative sites around, that I can include many of my indirect ancestors and yet not my direct ancestor, my own grandfather. I would love some pointers from anyone not hysterical laughing at me right now!

 

Until 1917 I believe the numbers attached to a soldier were Regimental in nature. They changed with the move of a man from regiment to regiment (earlier they had even changed between battalions of the same regiment! ) Six figure universal numbers were applied from 1917 ( gradually I think) and these would likely be the same at the end of World War I for a soldier who rejoined in 1939, always allowing for usual military efficiency.

As an 'old sweat' your grandfather may well have stayed with the Training Regiment right through WW2 passing on his knowledge to new recruits.

 

Hi Carla, I can't help with your question but please don't think you are silly asking it, no-one knows everything and it's only by asking questions that we learn. You have one up on me as I would love to see my grandfather's military record, but sadly I haven't got his medals or his number and with a name like John Edwards from Wales, there isn't much chance of finding him in the records.

 

Thanks for that everyone. My real difficulty is that I haven't got a regimental number for my grandfather's WW1 service, although I believe he was in the RA. Mind you that is what I have been told by my Aunt, and the only thing that seems to substantiate her words are that three of the soldiers with him, in the second photo I have posted, have Royal Artillery Regimental badges on their caps. It's rather hard to see, but I have had a magnifying glass to the original and my husband, who was in the RTR, agrees the badges are RA. If only I could go back in time and tell all soldiers that had photographs taken to wear their caps!! His name was Joseph Charles Martin, born in Mile End, Bow, London, and yes there are a few men with the same initials/name that could be him. Even worse is that he joined under age, his mother managed to get him returned home, and then he rejoined at the proper age. How do you find out which one he is? Certainly I would only be able to be certain if I could find his enlistment papers but obviously many were lost in WW2 bombing and the medal index doesn't help as the information contained is not enough. Did every soldier have their picture taken for identification? I may never be able to be positive I have found my grandfather's regimental details

 

Oops I forgot to add the photos, although I believe I have done so on another thread. I have added them to this post.

I don't have any details of his rank for WW1, although my Aunt seemed to think he was a Sergeant. I really can't prove that, and she could be wrong, but he was not an officer anyway. I know he was a Bombardier in WW2. I also know he definitely served in Mesopotamia and Egypt because my mother spoke a little to Joe about where he was, and she has always told me that. In fact both my Aunts say the same, so hopefully it is something I can rely on? His DOB was 14th October 1898.

 

A cousin once sent me piece in which an ancestor draws up some New Year resolutions, vowing to give his children common names, never to spell his name the same way twice, to always give a different place of birth etc. etc. I'll maybe seeif i can dig it out - it rang so true!

 

Sadly I don't have any service numbers for WW1 and I can only go by what I have been told for the regiment, ie Royal Artillery. I cant pinpoint, absolutely, which J C Martin on the medal card index is actually my grandfather as a result. If I had the service records I could look through them and probably work it out but it looks increasingly like my grandfather's records were one of the 'burnt' ones. because he ran away from home and there was a falling out no-one in his sibling's children has any useful information either. They have all said he was never talked about. It's really sad. Out of everyone I have in my ancestral tree he is the one person I so much want to include, especially as I have those two pictures shown in my post above. It's so frustrating.

 

Have you got his WW2 record Carla? That may well have details of his WW1 service. It might even be the case that his WW1 record is still with the MOD if he served after 1920 as looks a possibility. The Records people should be able to identify him without the service number as long as you supply such details as date and place of birth and the Next-of-Kin's name and address. as the clincher.

 

Another potential source of WW1 service numbers, if you can't find it elsewhere, is electoral registers and absent voters lists. This was how I discovered one of my grandfather's service numbers which then enabled me to locate which of many possible medal cards was his. His surname was Shepherd so I had quite a few to choose from.

 

Thanks for all those suggestions everyone and sorry I haven't been on here but my father is very ill so I have been at my parents a lot. I really appreciate the ideas.

Alexander I did type in my grandfather's WW2 service number on Lives but it didnt come up with anything at all. I am in the process of requesting his service records so we shall see what happens.

Pauline I have tried the absent voters list but then realised my grandfather was not old enough to vote anyway but hopefully the electoral register will help?

Thank you again!

 

Sorry - what I wrote before was ambiguous. The absent voters lists are part of the electoral registers and if your grandfather wasn't old enough to vote, and didn't turn 21 during the year covered by a register, then he won't be listed in either the main register or the absent voters list.

Sorry to hear about your father.

 

I found the piece; it is all over the internet, so it may not be new to you, but I had never seen it before, and it made me smile.

It is New Year's Eve, 1852 and John Smith sits at his desk by candlelight. He dips his quill pen in ink and begins to writes his New Year's resolutions:
**********************************
1. No man is truly well-educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways within the same document. I resolve to give the appearance of being extremely well-educated in the coming year.
2. I resolve to see to it that all of my children will have the same names that my ancestors have used for six generations in a row.
3. My age is no one's business but my own. I hereby resolve to never list the same age or birth year twice on any document.
4. I resolve to have each of my children baptized in a different church -- either in a different faith or in a different parish. Every third child will not be baptized at all, or will be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records.
5. I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or new state at least once every 10 years -- just before those pesky enumerators come around asking silly questions.
6. I will make every attempt to reside in counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years.
7. I resolve to join an obscure religious cult that does not believe in record keeping or in participating in military service.
8. When the tax collector comes to my door, I'll loan him my pen, which has been dipped in rapidly fading blue ink.
9. I resolve that if my beloved wife Mary should die, I will marry another Mary.
10. I resolve not to make a will. Who needs to spend money on a lawyer?
11. I resolve to not clutter up the good farm pasture with headstones that will just get broken or fade with time anyway.
12. I resolve to protect my family and friends privacy, by giving false names and places for events.
13. I resolve to never give the correct accounts of misdeeds in the family, so when Uncle Lem shot that fellow and was tried for murder, my children will be told he stole a cow.
14. I resolve to never trim the family cemetery of brush and tangle weed, to keep out any one doing that silly Genealogical work.
15. I resolve to always alternate my child's and wife's first and middle names when the census taker comes around, just to give him practice with his spelling.
16. I resolve to come from Ireland (where there are no records, or, if there are, they can only be examined by visiting the exact village and, pleading with the local clergy, (who is hostile to anyone not of his belief, which of course you are) and/or handing over a fee equal to or exceeding your yearly income for one hour's research which may not find anything.)
17. I resolve that not only shall I NOT die in my country of birth, nor shall my children (yea verily) unto the sixth generation.
18. I resolve that I shall call my children by odd names which the enumerator shall spell incorrectly.
19. I resolve that I shall be absent on the night of the census.
20. I resolve that if unable to be absent on census night I shall endeavor to be enumerated twice.
21. I resolve that when I die my children/wife are instructed to give the wrong details for my death certificate.
22. I resolve that I and most of my family shall die suddenly just before death certifications started to be used, in a parish where easy access to the records ceased the previous year