Lancashire Libraries's List: Research WW1 Finding People & Memorials

Go back to the Main List of general resources for research in to WW1 complied by Lancashire Museums

Lancashire Reads is a simple idea, but an ambitious task - to get as many Lancashire people as possible to all read the same book.
This year, our chosen book is Private Peaceful, this poignant story of the World War One from former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo. Lots of copies are available to borrow from all our Libraries, so everyone really can read the same book and we'll be holding special Lancashire Reads events during the year. #LancashireReads

At Ancestry you can search many military records to find service records, medal cards, pension records, memorial books, citations, war graves, attestation papers, and more. Free access is available at all Lancashire Libraries, Lancashire Archives and selected Museums.

To access the same military records as Ancestry Institution outside Lancashire Libraries, Archives and Museum, you will need to personally subscribe to Ancestry.co.uk (current annual rates £107-155).

At Find My Past you can search many military records to find distinguished Conduct Citations 1914-1920, Manchester Roll of Honour National Roll of the Great War, Naval Casualties, Prisoners of War, Royal Air Force Muster Roll, Royal Marines Medal Roll, Royal Naval Service Records, and more. Free access is available at all Lancashire Libraries, Lancashire Archives and selected Museums.

To access the same military records as Find My Past outside Lancashire Libraries, Archives and Museum, you will need to personally subscribe (current annual rates £99-129).

The Lives of the First World Warsite, produced by the Imperial War Museums, will bring material from museums, libraries, archives and family collections from across the world together in one place. IWM needs your help to explore those documents, to link them together and to start telling the stories of those who served in uniform and worked on the home front.

A quick guide to sources from the Imperail War Museum

The National Archives Looking for a person? provides a comprehensive guide to finding records of Service Personnel, Volunteers and Territorials, Forces Nurses, POWs and Concientious Objectors, plus medals and honours, and war diaries. A selection of records are available online, with more added daily for the WW1 commemoration. Other records are available through third party services.

The Service Personnel and Veterans Agency websiteallows you to search the Armed Forces Memorial Roll of Honour to find armed forces personnel who died during service.

The War Memorials Trust provides details of war memorials in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and includes a War Memorials online place search.

The London Gazette has published official and legal notices and authroriative news since the seventeenth century. In their online archive, you can utilise advanced search to find entries concerning individuals' medal receipt, commendation, capture or death.

This site contains the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's Debt of Honour database giving details of the 1.75 million Commonwealth war casualties and where their graves or memorials are located. This is a free service.

Imperial War Museums is compiling a comprehensive record of all war memorials in the UK. Online database still in progress but available to search.

A comprehensive guide to WWI memorials and cemeteries around the world. Information on local and history, including photographs. No full list of names included on each memorial however.

North East War Memorials Project povides information regarding war memorials in the North East and a search option to find individuals listed on these memorials

Royal United Services Institute at White Hall in London hold a large collection on military history including Army Lists, both as hard copies and digitised, featuring information on ranked individuals including sign-up date and rank progression.

The records office at Preston holds an extensive collection of documentation relating to WWI, e.g. a list of WWI dead from the Express and Advertiser, St Peter, Burnley, 15th February 1919, and the Police Gazette 1916-20 containing national lists of deserters and absentees from all the armed services, including names, descriptions and date of desertion.

Accrington Library'sCommunity History department has an extensive WWI collection of texts on subjects including how to read a war memorial, war memorials in Britain, and cemeteries and memorials in Belgium and Northern France.

The Community History Library at the Preston Harris holds an archive of bound copies of the Army List (from 1880-) and Navy Lisy (1900-) with information on sign-up date and rank progression of officers and ranked individuals.