The First World War had a huge impact on Somerset and its people. The Centenary of the conflict from 2014-2019, instigated much research, at a national and local level, and led to the online publishing of many additional resources. This guide gives advice on the sources available at the Somerset Heritage Centre, and online sources held elsewhere, which can be used to research the First World War, the people who served and the role of a community in the conflict.

Service personnel: Where to start?

Many people interested in researching the First World War want to trace the experiences of an individual person – a relative or perhaps a name on a local war memorial.

There are a number of ways to begin your research:

• Check for any papers held in the family, such as photographs, documents, medals, letters and diaries, these may help determine in which force and unit a person served with, together with other information such as rank or service number.
• Ask relatives for any information they may have relating to the person you are researching. They might be able to remember when or where an individual fought or with which regiment or service.
• Absentee voter lists (ref. Q/RER) provide service details of absent voters (both male and female) for 1918 and 1919. The lists are compiled by electoral constituency and reveal which individuals from a community were serving in the armed forces and in many cases the particular unit or regiment they served with. An index to the Taunton and Bridgwater Absentee voter lists is available.
• If an individual died during service they are likely to be listed on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database. The resource can reveal important information such as the unit a person served with, date of death, age, service number and details of next of kin.

The County Regiments: What do we hold?

The Somerset Heritage Centre holds the archives of the county regiments. Although these collections do not hold individual service records, they can help to set a soldier’s service in context, and provide details on what actions they may have been involved in. They are a valuable source for anyone researching soldiers who served in the Somerset Light Infantry (ref. DD/SLI) or the North Somerset Yeomanry (ref. DD/NSY). Below is a list of the key records in the collections.

• Battalion war diaries are official records of a unit that were compiled during the war. They provide a daily account of a unit’s actions and movements. The amount of information contained within war diaries varies considerably. War diaries sometimes mention officers, but rarely name soldiers from the ranks. War diaries can also be downloaded from The National Archives and can be viewed online via Ancestry.
• Muster rolls and casualty lists can contain information on individual soldiers. We hold a complete roll for the 1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry (ref. DD/SLI/9/4) and a partial roll for the 7th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry (ref. DD/SLI/3/1/12-13). The North Somerset Yeomanry archive also contains casualty lists (ref. DD/NSY/3/1/1-3). Transcripts of these muster and casualty lists can be found on our online catalogue.
• Photographs, scrapbooks, letters and individual diaries are also contained within the collections.
• Although the regimental archive of the West Somerset Yeomanry is not known to have survived, the Somerset Light Infantry collection contains the battalion war diary and numerous photographs.
• Published histories are another useful source. _The History of the Somerset Light Infantry, 1914-_1919 by Everard Wyrall, provides a very good overview of the actions of the Regiment. Other histories published more recently often contain additional research and information from contemporary sources, many parishes have produced publications to mark the centenary, which often detail the service of parishioners. We also hold the published county book of memorial for Somerset.
• Somerset newspapers contain numerous references to local men who served with the army, navy or air force and to women who served as nurses or with the Women’s Auxiliary Corps. Photographs, letters from the front, accounts of combat actions and casualty lists can be found. Many newspapers are available to view on microfilm at the Somerset Heritage Centre and Somerset Libraries, some are also available online via the British Newspaper archive.
• School records for large grammar schools and independent schools can contain in-depth information about First World War service personnel. Some of the larger independent school collections, such as Wellington School (ref. A/DKH) and Bruton School (ref. DD/BRU), include details on ‘Old Boys’ who served during the war, Log books of primary schools may also detail war related activities.
• The regimental collections unfortunately hold little information on the home service or garrison battalions of the Somerset Light Infantry.

Service personnel: Army service

Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive list of the 8 million men who served in the British Army during the First World War. The individual service records created by the War Office, were largely destroyed through enemy action in 1940, and copies were not kept by the individual regiments. However, there are other records which may help:

• Most soldiers (officers and other ranks) who saw active service were awarded a campaign medal. Medal Index cards were created to keep a record of the medals to which individuals were entitled. Researchers can use them to find out more about a person’s service history including which unit they served with. Medal index card’s can be searched and downloaded using Ancestry or The National Archives website.
• The Service Medal and Award Rolls, also available on Ancestry, provide further details on service for officers and other ranks, often noting which Regiment and Battalion a person served with.
• The Service records for other ranks which survived destruction in 1940, known as the ‘burnt records’ are held at the National Archives and are available via Ancestry and Find My Past. Service records for officers have not been digitised but are available from The National Archives.
• If the Service records do not survive, check the Army Pension records, available on Ancestry. These are complete for Army Service personnel who received a pension, however, not all were entitled to a pension. The Pension Ledgers and index cards list the military-related personnel who filed for a pension after World War I, or if they were injured or killed, the details of their widow, descendants or next of kin who may have filed for pension on their behalf. The Pension Ledgers can be searched via Ancestry, but a Fold3 subscription is also required to view them. Full details on the records can be found on The Western Front Association website. 
• If a soldier was invalided out during the conflict, he would have received the Silver War Badge. A roll of those in receipt of this badge is searchable on Ancestry and Find My Past.
• If the soldier was an officer then details on his commission and service will be shown in the published Army Lists. Those for the war years are held at the Heritage Centre and can be viewed online via the National Library of Scotland's website. 
• Details of awards, honours and promotions can be found on the London Gazette website. Citations for the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Victoria Cross registers, can also be found on Ancestry.
• Records of Prisoners of War are held by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and can be searched via their website. The National Archives hold reports and interviews, which are available to download from their website, whilst other relevant records held at The National Archives are available on Find My Past.
• Wills for First World War personnel can be ordered via the UK government’s probate search service.
• Other Army records held by The National Archives include campaign medal rolls, pension case files and Soldier’s effect ledgers, see their research guides for more details.
• NB. New records are frequently being published online on Ancestry and Find My Past, so it is always worth checking their lists of new collections, and searching the record set lists for First World War or World War I. 

Service Personnel: The other forces

We hold few records at the Heritage Centre for service with the other forces such as the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Naval Reserve or the Royal Marines. The majority of service and related records are held at The National Archives and are available online, as follows:

• Royal Naval Reserve officers and service personnel service records, at The National Archives.
• Royal Naval Air Service Officer and Rating records, at The National Archives and on Find My Past.
• Merchant Seamen’s registers, at The National Archives and on Find My Past.
• Royal Marines’ service records, at The National Archives.
• Royal Air Force officer’s service records are at The National Archives.
• Royal Flying Corps records will either be amongst the British Army or the RAF records, held at The National Archives.
• Women’s Auxiliary Corps service records are at The National Archives.
• Women’s Royal Air Force service records are at The National Archives.
• Women’s Royal Naval service records are at The National Archives.

For details on any of the above collections see The National Archives research guides on their website.

Service Personnel: Nursing services

We hold few records at the Heritage Centre relating to the service of nurses and nursing volunteers in the conflict, however, there are useful records held elsewhere, again with many being available online.

• Records of Service for the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and records of other volunteers with the Red Cross are held by the International Red Cross. These records can be searched and viewed via their website.
• British Army Nurses service records are at The National Archives.

How to research a Somerset community

If you are interested in finding out how a community was affected by the First World War, there are a number of sources that can be used to research individual parishes or the wartime story of the wider county.

• Use information from the 1901 and 1911 censuses to find information about individuals from a particular place. These can be accessed via Ancestry or Find My Past.
• The Somerset Heritage Centre hold the ecclesiastical parish records (ref. D/P/*) for most of Somerset’s parishes. Parish registers of baptism, marriage and burial, provide information on individuals from the parish. Details on the management of the parish during the war years can be found in the Vestry or Parochial Church Council minutes. Records of War Memorial Committees survive for some parishes, as do faculties for the installation of memorials. Parish magazines can provide a wide range of relevant information, including details of those serving from the parish and appeals for war memorials.
• Council records provide information about administration decisions made during the war years. The records of Somerset County Council (ref. C/*) include the minutes of the council (ref. C/CC/M) and the War Agricultural Executive Committee (ref. C/SH/WA), along with War Pension returns (ref. C/EW). Before the introduction of the present-day district councils Somerset was divided up into Boroughs (ref. D/B/*), Urban District Councils (ref. D/U/*) and Rural District Councils (ref. D/R/*). The Council minute books are a key source as they detail the decisions and actions of the individual council. These council collections can include planning applications for memorial halls, accounts of war memorial subscriptions, or in the case of Taunton, a return of the men of the borough who served, an index to which is available on our website. An index to the War Agricultural Executive Committee can be found here.
• At the end of the War many Somerset parishes created a parish return of the contribution of the parish to the war effort. These returns mainly cover the central and southern parishes, but can be very detailed on the people who served, the charity work of the parish and any war time industry. These records are included in the Somerset County Council collection (ref. C/EW/7-8).
• Somerset Heritage Centre holds parish council records (ref. D/PC/*) for about half of Somerset’s parishes. Parish Council minute books detail the decisions and actions of the parish, including the building of war memorials and appeals for support for the county war memorial, along with accounts and correspondence.
• Somerset newspapers from 1914-1918 contain extensive accounts of daily life on the home front and contain a high level of information that can be found, even for the smallest of Somerset parishes. References to the construction and dedication of war memorials are often noted in the newspapers for the 1920s and 1930s.
• When military conscription was introduced in January 1916 a military tribunal system was established to provide a means of appeal against conscription orders, based on employment, family circumstances or religious beliefs. Tribunals were held throughout the county, the Military Tribunal registers for Bath and Taunton have survived (refs. C/EW and DD/SCL) and contain details about those appealing and the result of the tribunal.
• Minute books of societies, such as the Women’s Institute (ref. DD/WI) provide details on home front activities to support the war effort, including knitting circles and War Bond initiatives.
• The Historic Environment Record are databases of the archaeological and historic landscape of Somerset, which includes details on the county war memorials and buildings, which had an important use during the conflict. Somerset is covered by four different HER’s: Somerset, North Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset and Exmoor National Park.

Online resources

Many of the sources listed in this guide are available online and can be found by searching under the title or key words. Ancestry and Find My Past are both subscription genealogical websites, free access to which are provided at the Somerset Heritage Centre. The National Archives website has an online catalogue, along with guides to their holdings and online records.

Indexes to our key First World War records can be found on the Somerset Archive online catalogue, local history books can be found via our Library catalogue.

A lot of research into the First World War has been conducted since the centenary of the conflict, most of which can be found online. There are also many research sites which may be able to help with your research.