National Archives UK opens it's POW 1715-1945 collection

More than 764,000 records of servicemen, women and civilians who were taken captive during the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, Boer War, First World War and Second World War have been published online

The entire Prisoners Of War 1715-1945 collection now contains over 2 million records.

First page of lists of POWs captured in Boer War

From the site: "The records are incredibly diverse and not only include military personnel, but also civilians, diplomats, missionaries and merchant seamen. The nature of these documents varies owing to the enormous scope and scale of the collection. Some will consist of lists of deaths, files on escapees and detailed records of daily life, while others will reveal additional biographical details about individual inmates including physical descriptions, witness statements, medical reports and more."

The Prize Papers Projects

Prize Papers Project launches at Oldenburg Castle

This is a very cool database project that is beginning. The Prize Papers Project, consists of approximately 160,000 undelivered letters seized from ships captured by the British in the wars of the 17th to the 19th centuries. The letters, many unopened, were still in their mail bags headed for delivery.

Most of the collection consists of items (letters, jewellry, locks of hair etc) tucked into envelopes and sent from 1652 to 1815.

What Do the Prize Papers Consist of?

Professor Dagmar Freist of The University of Oldenburg in Germany will work with The National Archives in opening up the HCA 30 (This series consists of miscellaneous Admiralty papers from the High Court of Admiralty, and the Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice, Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division) and HCA 32 series (This series consists of papers relating to cases concerning ships captured as prize in time of war. Although the papers cover the period 1592 to 1855, the core dates of the bulk of the papers are 1655 to 1817) for further research and discovery.

Length of Project

But don't get too excited just yet - this is a 20 year project set to begin May 2018! I'm kind of hoping for a letter from or to my husband's ancestor Thomas Montgomery who was sailing on a ship from England to New York when the ship was captured. The vessel he was on reached the coast of Newfoundland, where it was taken in charge by a British man-of-war, and all on board were made prisoners of war and taken to St. Johns, where they were detained four weeks. Perhaps there were letters - I can always hope.

U.K. War Office Records Available Online

Five volumes of War Office, Class 42 (WO 42) have been digitized and are now free to view on the The National Archives UK website. WO 42 covers half pay and widow's pensions in the 19th Century for Provincial and other Loyalist and Canadian officers. 

It is chock full of genealogical information such as marriage certificates and references to widows. There are several online sections, organized in alphabetical order. (see image on left)

The images are freely available. 

LOYAL AMERICAN AND CANADIAN CORPS is a subset within WO 42 - War Office: Officers' Birth Certificates, Wills and Personal Papers 

Also see UK, British Army and Navy Birth, Marriage and Death Records, 1730-1960

The Top 10 Genealogy Influencers You Should Follow on Twitter

To my great surprise (and delight!) I found myself ranked as #5 of 2,573 in the Top Genealogy Influencers! 

I'm in good company, just check out the names of those in the top 10:

Here's the top 10 and their Twitter Handle in case you aren't following them yet: 

1. Ancestry.com @ancestry

2. Geneabloggers @geneabloggers
3. National Archives UK @uknatarchives

4. Family Tree Magazine @familytreemag

5. Yours truly! Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy @Lorinems

6. Kirsty Wilkinson @genealogygirl

7. Library of Congress @librarycongress

8. British Newspaper Archives @bnarchive
9. Genealogy Bank @genealogybank

10. Megan Smolenyak @megansmolenyak

Finding an Ancestor in WW1 RAF Service Records Online

The Royal Air Force (RAF) was the world's first independent military air arm and by the end of the First World War it had become the largest.

Now you can search and download First World War service records of RAF officers. This database is of interest to Canadians whose ancestor may have enlisted in WW1 as a pilot. Canada did not have its own Air Force and any individual wishing to join the Air Force had to join the RAF. 

Approximately one-quarter of the aircrew in British Royal Air Force (RAF) squadrons were Canadian. A large RAF training establishment operated in Canada to produce new aircrew.

The collection contains records for over 99,000 individuals and is searchable by first name, last name and date of birth.

Searching the indexes is free but to obtain full details a small fee is charged by the National Archives UK. I tried this database with a generic search for my PEER ancestors. Because I search for all PEER individuals in North America, it's always of interest to me to see if one of them can be found in any new database online.

My search gave me two results for PEER. In order to view the scans of their service records I saw that it would cost me 3.50L for each man (that converts to $11.00 Canadian) The website stated each man's records consisted of 3 pages. I added both to my Shopping Cart and then made the purchase. This is what I love about ordering from the National Archives UK website - after entering my Credit Card details, I was given an immediate link to download the service records. The link is good for 28 days.

As is common with Military Service Records you never know what you're going to get. Some are full of information, others are not.

The Service Record I downloaded for Walter James Peer gave his name, date of birth, next-of-kin in Canada, address in Canada and place of employment. There wasn't much recorded in the section for his whereabouts throughout the War.


The second record for Harold Emerson Peer had a full page of entries for his movements throughout his time in the RAF but no date of birth, no next of kin and no location in Canada. For me that $11.00 was well worth it as I pursue my genealogy with the goal of obtaining as much detail as possible about every individual in my database.

One caveat - when the National Archives UK website states there are x number of pages in a set of records, be aware that the first page is a Title Page with no information on the person involved.