No luck with FMP UK records

kildarejohn

As per previous Thread, FindMyPast had free access to UK records this weekend.
However I had no luck in relation to finding records on my grandfather. He was in Irish 1911 census and went to England c.1912, returning to Ireland in 1920's.
Can anyone suggest any other good sources of records for this period? Would Ancestry by better than FMP?

shanew

Other than births/Marriages and Death, you would probably need to check Electoral registers for this sort of timeframe - access depends on where in England he ended up.

He might also show up in newspapers or directories, depending on what his occupation was and what he got up to..

Waitsian

kildarejohn wrote: »

As per previous Thread, FindMyPast had free access to UK records this weekend.

However I had no luck in relation to finding records.....

I found dozens!

shanew

If he was in the army then I think the Medal cards are the place to start as they are fairly complete afaik. These generally include service number and regt. which can help further searches, but not dont usually include family details, although I have seen home/nok address on a couple. Ancestry have these. I know FMP have military records, but not sure if they have the cards.

kildarejohn

shanew wrote: »

If he was in the army then I think the Medal cards are the place to start as they are fairly complete afaik. These generally include service number and regt. which can help further searches, but not dont usually include family details, although I have seen home/nok address on a couple. Ancestry have these. I know FMP have military records, but not sure if they have the cards.

Yes, am pretty sure GF was in British Army. FMP have the Medal Cards index, however they only have an index, not the cards themselves. The FMP result list only displays the names, no other info, so if you have someone with a common name (like my GF), all you get is a list of 100 "John Smiths", with nothing to distinguish them. A much better index to Medal Cards is available for free on livesofthefirstworldwar.org. So my plan is to use the "lives" site to narrow it down to a few likely hits and then try Ancestry for images of the cards.

montgo

Here is the link to fold3 from Nov 10 - 30.

Sorry meant to make this a new topic.

Jellybaby1

montgo wrote: »

Here is the link to fold3 from Nov 10 - 30.

Sorry meant to make this a new topic.

All those records are American, no European countries on the list.

dido2

Kildarejohn

What was your grandfathers name, when when and where was he born and i'll check ancestry for you...

Coolnabacky1873

John Grenham had a very interesting article last month that could be relevant to this thread. A section reads:

So picture this: a giant set of administrative records is created, with thousands of people involved. There are plenty of unavoidable human omissions and mistakes.
This record-set is then transferred to an archives. Inevitably, a few of the originals fall down the back of a chair. The surviving records are then microfilmed – well, most of them. A finding aid is then created to the microfilms. Nearly all of the microfilms.
Years later, these microfilms are digitised, but only the ones covered by the incomplete finding aid. The images are then transcribed – with just a few missed – by people who have no knowledge of the subject.
Then the transcripts are turned into a searchable database by people who know nothing about administrative records and couldn’t give a hoot abut history.

Also how we use the search interface on genealogy websites can mean that we don't find records that are in the database.