My grandfather was in the royal engineers, where do i go to purchase his records

Question:I tried the main website and cant find where to go?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I tried the main website and cant find where to go?

What you can and can't get depends on the era you are talking about and which war he served in.

The National Archives are doing their best to get a lot of the records online, especially with backing from the Ancestry.co.uk website, but the fact remains that what is online is dwarfed by what isn't online. A lot of records aren't likely to find their way online at all just yet, especially anything post World War 1 (1914-1918). Records after this date (including WW2) are still with the Ministry of Defence and you have to write to a mailbox address in Glasgow with proof of kinship etc, and include a whopping ￡35 search fee, which is non-refundable, whether they find a record or not. The more information you can provide, the better, but searches can take many many months and genealogists requests do get pushed to the bottom of the pile in place of ex-servicemen and veterans.

As far as WW1 is concerned, millions of army records went up in flames in 1940 when the place that held them was hit by Nazi bombs during the blitz. What didn't burn in the flames got soaked by the firemans hoses trying to put the thing out. There's no way of telling what survived and what didn't - you can't say for example that surnames A-M survived and N-Z were burnt, because the records weren't arranged like that, and the destruction was more random. The odds on finding a surviving service record for an ordinary non-comm soldier are reckoned to be less than 30%. If he actually survived the war and took a pension, then the odds are much higher, as the MOD did make an effort to try and reconstruct some of the records for this very purpose. Even so, the odds of finding a WW1 army record are not good. Some are just one or two pages in length, others much longer. Ancestry are now beginning to put them online, but very few searchers will strike lucky. I certainly never have. What you can download though, for ￡3.50, is a copy of your man's WW1 medal card, but these were never intended for use by the average layman, and can be quite difficult to read. Usually it will just tell you the date and place that a soldier entered the field of war, usually 'France & Flanders' and nothing else about what he did afterwards. Some might give a date of death, but it mostly just lists which medals he was entitled to. Some people try and look up the unit war diaries to try and pin down where and what a regiment were doing at any given time, but these things can run into hundreds of pages and although they might mention officers by name, won't mention the rank-and-file.

In the meantime, you have to visit the National Archives in Kew, London, and as has already been said, they are in the middle of a huge refit, and space is currently at a premium. You may wish to want to hire a professional military researcher to do the search for you, someone who can tell you in seconds whether or not the record survives or not.

you want the public records office in Kew,they have their own website where you can purchase credits and print the records out instantly on your PC,dont know the direct site,but i go via Genes reunited.Bear in mind the records office was bombed in 1940 and a lot of records were destroyed,good luck.

Try the Public Record Office site. Depends when he was in the services, and if he is still alive. If not, only next of kin can apply, or give consent. It costs ￡30 + documentation, certificates, or proof of death, etc. If you are talking about WW1, a lot of records were bombed and burnt in WW2.

I believe that you can the information you are looking for from this web site,
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
there is a phone number on there, they are really helpful.

You could get in contact with the R.E.M.E, museum in Gillingham Kent . I do not know if they can help but its worth a try as most engineers have spent time in Gillingham at one time or another I think it is on King Charles road Gillingham .Kent as I am fairly local I have visited the museum once or twice and found it interesting as I am a civvy Engineer and my old firm supplied the M.O.D with lots of road building equipment many years ago ! I hope that this is of some help and good luck in your quest !!!

Try the National Archives. If this is the website you talk about, I had the same problem. I couldn't make any sense of their site when I was trying to find my grandfathers naval records. I ended up calling the helpline, and they told me exactly what I had to do. I asked for a quote on the price of copying all of the records I wanted, and it came back as 200 pages for about ￡250! In the end I realised I would have to go there myself and scan what I really wanted. You may have to do this too, but be aware they are refurbishing at the moment. Good luck!