Its been another productive month where I’ve mostly focussed on finding new service records on Findmypast which I’ve subscribed to thanks to some great advice (the indexing is so much better).
This has led to finding another 70 men and another 30 new service records, bringing the grand total of men found to 903, of whom I have ’08 service numbers for 691. I’ve also found some more confirmed portraits, bringing the total to 19.
The chart below shows the number of men of the Brigade identified in blocks of 200 (based on their 08 service numbers). The blue bar is the number of men identified in that block, and the orange is where there is a confirmed 08 number.
It shows a number of interesting things
- There are limited surviving records for the earlier pre-war territorials (c20%). This, in many ways, is unsurprising. The only records for these men (who did not continue to serve in the war) would be service records and most were destroyed.
- There are many more surviving records for the later pre-war recruits and first wave of wartime recruits (c80%). This is driven by the number of different sources available for these men (who almost all would have served in the War). It has also been possible to find 08 numbers for most of them, this is most likely because that was their primary number at the time and it was less likely to change than later recruits.
- There is still good levels of information for the remaining recruits (65%), but it becomes increasingly less likely to find the 08 no. Once again, this can be explained by the fact that many of the men transferred into other units and they were more likely to be known by their 725xxx number.
This month I’ve got a few things planned:
- I’m going to Kew to look at surviving service records for some of the men who were commissioned. I’m also going to check the post-war TFEM records.
- I’m hoping to go to Swansea where I hope to look at a number of sources.
- I plan to have 2 weeks focussing on writing more profiles.
