WWI Medals - British War Medal and Victory Medal

There were five World War I campaign medals in all

The 1914 Star (also known as the Mons Star)  Nicknamed 'Pip'
The 1914-15 Star                               Nicknamed 'Pip'
The British War Medal 1914-1918     Nicknamed 'Squeak'
The Allied Victory Medal                    Nicknamed 'Wilfred'
The Territorial Force War Medal 1914-1919

('Pip', 'Squeak', and 'Wilfred' were popular cartoon characters in the Daily Mail.  (In the cartoons, by A B Payne, Pip was a dog, Squeak a penguin and Wilfred a young rabbit.)

The first two medals have been written about in this blog

The 1914 Star (also known as the Mons Star)
The 1914-15 Star


The following is about the British War Medal and the Victory Medal

The British War Medal

This is the most commonly issued WW I medal - to over 6,500,000 men (a more specific number given on one website is 6,610,000).  Approximately 4,700,000 medals were for distribution at home and another 600,000 for the Dominions and Colonies.  There was a hierarchy of medals as the silver version was issued to 6,400,000 people and the bronze version of 110,000 was issued to the Chinese, Maltese and Indian Labour Corps.

The medals were awarded to officers and men of the British and Imperial Forces who were in service between 5th August 1914 and 11th November 1918, who served either in a theatre of war or served overseas, but to receive it the person must have left British shores.

The medal was established on the 26th July 1919, but later those men who served in Russia and Serbia in 1919 and 1920 were included.

The front showed the head of George V, and the recipient's service number, rank, name and unit were on the rim.  On the reverse is an image of St George.  The ribbon has a central band of golden yellow with three stripes of white, black and blue on both sides. The soldier's regiment and number were inscribed round the rim.

The Victory Medal

The Victory Medal was issued by each of the victorious Allied countries and the British medal was designed by William McMillan (who, incidentally, died in 1977).  On the front was a Winged Victory in a classical pose and on the reverse was the inscription 'The Great War for Civilisation'.  The medal was in bronze.

The medal was only awarded to all those entered a theatre of war, (unlike the British War Medal, which was given to men who served overseas - which included Indian Service), so it was awarded to 300,000 fewer men, with a total awarded of 5,725,000.  The medal was also awarded to men who fought in Russia and Trans-Caspia

All three services were eligible, including women for their service in nursing homes and auxiliary forces.  It was also awarded to the British naval mission to Russia (1919-1920) and for mine clearance in the North Sea between 11 November 1918 and 30 November 1919.

Online Records for the British War Medal and the Victory Medal

By far the most important source are The National Archives Medal Index Cards (in series WO 372) at

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/medal-index-cards-ww1.htm

There are over 5 million cards, most of which are for soldiers in the British Army.  The collection includes:

• most British Army officers
• Indian Army personnel
• British Army Nurses
• Royal Flying Corps personnel
• Royal Naval Division personnel
• some civilians

The Medal Index is also available Ancestry under the title 

'British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920' at

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=1262


For a list of all medals on Ancestry and Findmypast go to
http://www.familyhistoryrecordsonline.com/military.html#medalsandhonours

Ancestry and Findmypast compared

Over the last week or so I have undertaken the major task of putting on all the county records for England and Wales held by Ancestry and Findmypast.  

Both sites have the facility to search at a county level by searching for the county name in the title of the dataset which is remarkably helpful.  This allows all researchers to quickly assess the county holdings from the two main sites. This does make for a 'like for like' comparison, but of course does miss out the major national datasets, such as the censuses, which do not have a county name in the title.  My searches therefore only picked up a relatively small sample of each site's total records.

Unfortunately The Genealogist does not have the same search facility, so whilst having some excellent datasets I will have to go through in slow time looking at each dataset in turn.

The results from Berkshire are in the Berkshire section at

http://www.familyhistoryrecordsonline.com/places.html#berkshire

The results were interesting.  This is the comparative list for Berkshire - one of the smaller collections on both sites.

The first is that of Findmypast

• Berkshire, Baptisms
• Berkshire, Marriages
• Berkshire, Burial Index

The second is that for Ancestry

• Berkshire, England, Extracted Parish Records
• East Hendred : a Berkshire parish historically treated : a suggestion for a complete parochial survey of the kingdom
• Reading, Berkshire, England: St. Lawrence Municipal Church History
• Bucklebury : a Berkshire parish, the home of Bolingbroke 1701-1715
• Highways and Byways in Berkshire

This is a fairly typical, though small, comparison.  I alternate in my attitude to the less directly relevant datasets - such as the Highways and Byways in Berkshire (a title which is replicated across many other counties).  To my mind this could be very interesting for local knowledge and flavour, but would have few names as records.

Similarly the extremely local records of East Hendred and Bucklebury are unlikely to yield much unless you are extremely lucky.

Whilst Berkshire has surprisingly few datasets, some areas have huge amounts of data - notably London. For London Findmypast has 11 datasets and Ancestry has a massive 64 datasets. As with Berkshire above, some of the datasets are often not directly relevant, such as

• Lyson's. The Environs of London being a Historical Account of the Towns, Villages and Hamlets
• Mediaeval Towns of London (1909)

So, while it is undoubtedly the case the Ancestry have more separate datasets than Findmypast, the datasets may have limited number of names, but be interesting background.

One problem with counting the number of datasets is that a single dataset can mask the actual numbers of records within it. One of the differences between Findmypast and Ancestry is that Ancestry gives the number of records within each dataset - something that Findmypast does not often do.  This can make direct comparison between the sites difficult.

Within the Findmypast datasets the numbers for Berkshire, which are located in a sub-section, are

Berkshire, Baptisms - 144,030 baptisms from 43 parishes, dated 1538-1928
Berkshire, Marriages - over 210,000 records from 89 parishes dated 1538-1927
Berkshire, Burial Index over 750,500 records from 175 parishes, dated 1536-1962

From these three datasets there are approximately 1,000,000 records.

For Ancestry the Berkshire, England, Extracted Parish Records' dataset only has over 18,000 records - all the rest are under 700 records.  

This of course is not always the case and some Ancestry datasets are huge and - excluding the big national datasets (BMD and censuses etc) - the largest county dataset on either site is the massive West Yorkshire Electoral Registers dataset with over 22,000,000 records.

Therefore at a county level it is 'swings and roundabouts' depending on the dataset and background detail required. Based purely on the number of datasets, at a county level, all is not as it initially seems.

To check for the links for your county researches, go to

http://www.familyhistoryrecordsonline.com/places.html

Chris