Family History Day at the Imperial War Museum

By Jane Furlong, Project Coordinator Have you ever wondered how the Blitz affected your family? What role did your ancestors play to help win the war on the home front? And what effects of the raids can still be seen around us and in our lives today? If you are planning ahead and wandering what [...]

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Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers archive now online

The Castle and Regimental Museum, Monmouth, is a small volunteer-run museum which tells the story of the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia). The museum displays a wide range of artefacts relating to the Regiment, which can trace its origins back to the militia of the sixteenth century. It also holds the records of the Regiment, [...]

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Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE 2-4 May 2008

UKNIWM staff will again be running a stand with colleagues from the Imperial War Museum at the Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE show this year.  It takes place from 2 – 4 May in the Grand Hall, Olympia, London.  This is the second year the event has been run and last year we [...]

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How to trace the people behind the names

We recently answered an enquiry from a member of the public who wrote to tell us that she had started what she hoped would become a tradition with her young daughter on Remembrance Day.  They walk to the local war memorial and leave a poppy with a message.  Each year they will pick out one name and try to find out more information  about [...]

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Remembrance Sunday 11 November – meet the staff

11 November is Remembrance Sunday and staff from the UK National Inventory of War Memorials will be at three different branches of the Imperial War Museum, answering questions about war memorials, remembrance and tracing military family history. Each branch will also hold an armistice memorial ceremony at 11am. You can see us at the following branches Sunday 11th November at [...]

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New searchable post-WW2 Roll of Honour database

We receive regular enquiries from people searching for service personnel who died after the end of the Second World War.  While fatalities from the First and Second World War are well documented by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s Debt of Honour database, until now there was no easy way to search for those who had [...]

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National Family History Fair – 8 September

Along with colleagues from the Imperial War Museum, we’ll be manning a stall at the National Family History Fair at Gateshead International Stadium this Saturday, 8 September.  We always enjoy getting out and about talking to people interested in war memorials and discussing how information, both on memorials and in our archive, can help with family history research. Read more [...]

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Those with no memorial

On Sunday it will be 89 years exactly since my great grandmother’s step-brother was killed on the Western Front.  Lance Corporal Alexander Foltyniewicz died in action on 26 August 1918 at the age of 24.  He had served since early 1915 and died less than 3 months before the armistice.  The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 1,594 other commonwealth [...]

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A Canadian soldier at Passchendaele

Thursday, 12 July, saw the official remembrance ceremony at Tyne Cot military cemetery in Belgium, to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres.  47 memorials on our database specifically mention Passchendaele, but there will be many more memorials that commemorate soldiers who died during this [...]

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Mystery memorial found

Last week we received a phone call from Christchurch Borough Council.  They had discovered a marble memorial tablet in a heap of rubbish dumped on one of their beaches.  The memorial refered to the men of the parish who had joined the colours (i.e. served in the forces) during the First World War, and listed 4 [...]

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