Finding an ancestor from the First World War: where to search

In a box of old papers there is a memorial card (bidprentje). A young man in uniform, born in 1894, "fallen for the fatherland" in 1917. No one in the family remembers exactly who he was, which regiment he served in or where he is buried. A century later, most of the sources can be searched for free.

The short answer

Start with what you have at home: memorial cards, letters, photos in uniform, medals. Then search the List of Names (Namenlijst) of the In Flanders Fields Museum if he died in Belgium, and the sources of his own country: the War Dead Register for Belgium, CWGC for the Commonwealth, Mémoire des hommes for France, the Volksbund and CompGen for Germany. If he was a prisoner of war, search with the Red Cross.

Step 1: start at home

A memorial card often gives the name, the date of birth and the date and place of death. A photo in uniform sometimes shows a regimental number on the collar. Letters from the front mention places and comrades. Look at the war memorial in the village too: the name is there, and sometimes the date. Write everything down, along with where you found it.

Step 2: the List of Names in Ypres

The In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres keeps the List of Names (Namenlijst): a list of everyone who died in Belgium in the First World War, soldiers and civilians, of every nationality, friend and foe. Belgians who died abroad are included too. The list can be searched for free at namenlijst.org. If you know more about someone, or have a photo, you can send it to the museum. The museum's knowledge centre also helps with family research; check the opening hours before you go.

Step 3: Belgian soldiers

• War Dead Register: the War Heritage Institute has a free database of Belgian servicemen who were killed, at wardeadregister.be.
• Personal military file: the older files are held by the War Heritage Institute in Brussels, the more recent ones by the State Archives (Rijksarchief). You find the latter through the index cards of the Service of Military Records (Dienst van het Stamboek), which can only be consulted in the reading room. Files older than 100 years are open to everyone.

Such a file often records the period of service, the unit, promotions, decorations, wounds and hospital stays, and sometimes papers about captivity as a prisoner of war. The explanation is on familiegeschiedenis.be, the website of the State Archives and its partners.

Soldiers from other countries

Country	Where to search	Cost
Commonwealth (including the UK, Canada, Australia)	CWGC, "Find War Dead": about 1.7 million dead from both world wars, with unit, date and grave	Free
France	Mémoire des hommes: more than 1.3 million "mort pour la France" index cards	Free
Germany	Volksbund, grave search: more than 5 million dead and missing from both world wars	Free
Germany	CompGen, index of the casualty lists 1914 to 1919: about 8.5 million entries	Free
United States	Draft registration cards, 1917 and 1918, via FamilySearch	Free

A warning about British soldiers: most service records were lost in a bombing raid in September 1940. About 2 million damaged records survived; they are on the paid sites Ancestry and Findmypast, and can be viewed for free at The National Archives in Kew. For French soldiers there are also the registres matricules, digitised by département, which include those who survived the war.

Prisoners of war and civilians

The International Committee of the Red Cross has put its First World War archives online for free, at grandeguerre.icrc.org. They hold about 5 million index cards on some 10 million prisoners of war and interned civilians, of all nationalities.

From name to story

With the unit and the date, you can find out what happened that day: for British units in the war diaries at The National Archives, for French units on Mémoire des hommes. Soldiers with no known grave are often named on a memorial to the missing, such as the Menin Gate in Ypres.

A file tells you where someone served. The memorial card, the letters and the photo tell you who he was. Bring them together. In The Memory Palace you can create a room for that one young man, with his photo, his letters and what you found out about him, so that he remains more than a name on a memorial.

For letters and documents from that time, read our article on keeping old letters and documents. If you are just starting your family tree, read our guide to Belgium.