Honouring WW1 Soldiers - a New Website

A few of my remembered soldiers

In January Olive Tree Genealogy was pleased to be asked to help beta test a new website Lives of the First World War.

Lives of the First World War is one of the Imperial War Museum’s major centenary projects, which looks to uncover the life stories of the men and women who served Britain and the Commonwealth during the First World War.

After several months of testing, the site went live in May. I personally have spent many enjoyable hours adding photos, documents and stories to soldiers from England and Canada and absolutely love this site. Honouring and remembering our soldiers is so important and this site allows descendants, historians and genealogists to do so.


The site is a bit complicated to use but the investment of time to add the photos and stories is, in my opinion, well worth it. Lives of the First World War aims for quality which means strict adherence to their requirements for adding information. I will be providing a tutorial on adding stories and documents to an individual as well as setting up a community but for now, please do check the site out and start adding your photographs and data.

One small tip to get you started - you cannot add information or edit any fields until you add the document to support your facts. Above is a screen dump to show you choices of the type of evidence (documentation) you can add. This specific soldier is my husband's 2nd great-grandfather Sam Sandercock and you can see the records I have already attached to Sam. 

For help you can refer to their Guide to Getting Started. As well, their support desk is quick to respond to requests for help. 

You can also follow Lives of the First World War on Facebook or Twitter