Huge new archive of WW1 records!!!!!!

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

Detective work by a British historian has unearthed information that could enable thousands to piece together their family histories.

Peter Barton was commissioned to carry out research into the identities of World War I casualties discovered in a mass grave at Fromelles in France.

He was given access to the basement of the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva. There, he was allowed to examine records that have lain virtually untouched since 1918.

He estimates that there could be 20 million sets of details, carefully entered on card indexes, or written into ledgers.

Full story:
BBC NEWS | UK | Piecing together the past

[Elizabeth Herts]

I've also just seen this on BBC Breakfast.

However, we shall all have to be patient as they won't start work until the autumn, and then it could be 4 or 5 years before any information is available.

Apparently there is fantastic detail - what a man had in his pocket, precisely where he fell (e.g. three paces from a specified tree), etc.!

[Kit]

Well done Paul. That is a fantastic find,

[Lin Fisher]

I've also seem it on the BBC news.

Hope its got info on my Grandads as I can find nothing on them at Kew.

[dicole]

Wow, I hope it includes ANZACs as well. It would be great to add to what we have from the War Memorial !!

[Vicky the Viking]

Wow, I hope it includes ANZACs as well. It would be great to add to what we have from the War Memorial !!

the snippet I heard on the news this morning said he was originally specifically looking for Aussies, so I would think they are included.

They also said as its 20 MILLION records, so I think this must include all the burials, not just Allied Forces?

[Ozzie Gert]

If its the same field they are talking about Diane, yes it does, it was reported on TV here last year, but they had to cover up what they had found because of some permission they needed (from the French i think) and were talking about DNA tests for identification

Its great to see they have found information of who could be buried there though

Sylvia

[Vicky the Viking]

Must admit to being a bit sceptical about how much help this will be. There must have been hundreds of thousands of bodies so badly damaged that no identification would ever be possible. However, if you know when & where someone died (eg a certain battle on a certain date) then it should be easier to link this to a number of possible graves that are presently named only as "Known to God".
eg my OH's gt grandfather, who is recorded as dying on 2 June 1916 but is commemorated on the wall at the Menin gate as having no known grave.

[Cloggie]

I think there will also be records for many soldiers who were originally buried in known graves that were destroyed later in the war.
For example, I have a note sent by the War Office stating that my grandmother's cousin was "buried in Cemetery, grave no 21, at Bouchavesnes, three miles north of Peronne, France". But he now has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval memorial.

[Janet]

I only heard this on the news this morning but had not realised it was you Paul that was involved with this. I have a couple of W War 1 mysteries so now maybe all will be revealed sometime after 2014. But as you said so eloquently we need more lifetimes! Well done to you for unearthing this wonderful pot of genealogical gold.

Janet

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

Ha ha! :DIt's just a coincidence that I have the same surname as the historian! However, I am happy to receive your adulation!

[Penelope]

Redacted

[Phoenix]

The curious thing is that I always "knew" that the Red Cross had records at Geneva.

Thank goodness they were paper records. Anything undervalued & forgotten on a computer would have disappeared long since.

Weirdly, the report I heard appeared to suggest that we had had copies of the records in Britain, but they had vanished a long time ago.

I don't know about anybody else, but what I find so sad on the cwgc site is the number of people about whom nothing seems to be known: no age or next of kin.

[Fudge]

A great find however 4/5 years.......I can do that

Fudgie

[Heather Positive Thinker]

HELLO Paul! I was thinking yesterday we hadnt seen you for a while?

Then this morning they had that story on the radio and the guy who discovered the records was a chap called Barton and I thought about you again. Must be telepathy

[Mary from Italy]

The Australians have done well in this respect - there are loads of Red Cross files on the Australian War Memorial site, including missing persons files, all available free of charge.

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

HELLO Paul! I was thinking yesterday we hadnt seen you for a while?

Then this morning they had that story on the radio and the guy who discovered the records was a chap called Barton and I thought about you again. Must be telepathy

Heather, that moment of passion in the carpark behind the Rose and Crown has stayed with me too. I think about you every time I polish the bonnet of my car.

;)

[Vicky the Viking]

I don't know about anybody else, but what I find so sad on the cwgc site is the number of people about whom nothing seems to be known: no age or next of kin.

my OH's gt grandfather is one of those, and we only tracked him down because I came across his enlistment papers - he joined the CANADIAN army - & they showed his army number, which matched one of the names on the list.

As an aside, has anyone got further details added to the CWGC website - is it easy to do?

[Olde Crone Holden]

A MOMENT of passion? Poor Heather.

*pats Heather's hand consolingly. Hopes the Tinsel-knickered one isn't reading this thread*

OC

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

A MOMENT of passion? Poor Heather.

I would refer you to Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

When you take somebody to the stars and back, a moment can last for hours.