What Forces War Records Brand New Ww2 Casualties Collection Means To Genealogists

Melksham, United Kingdom, June 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Forces War Records military genealogy website has put up a new collection of ‘WWII Daily Reports (missing, dead, wounded & POWs)’, and are now available for clients to search by name. The National Archives, Kew does hold this collection, classed ‘WO 417: Army Casualty Lists (1939-1945)’, but their records are classified by date of injury/death/capture rather than name, so unless a client knows exactly when their ancestor was reported as a casualty clients will really struggle to find them.

It can be especially difficult to find those who survived the war; there are very, very few of these records available for the Second World War, since most are still retained by the MOD for reasons of data protection. The only records that a client will be able to find for those who survived (without paying the MOD for a search, for which they are likely to need a service number to find anything on those with common names) are POW records, Gallantry awards… and now casualty reports. Those who were wounded, or those reported missing (but yet to be confirmed as POWs) are generally only to be found here; each record gives the rank, service number, date of becoming a casualty/being reported missing, and type of casualty if applicable.

With so many records and collections still to be transcribed by Forces War Records, who knows what records might be turned up in time?

Further information on the list can be found on the Forces War Records website under the Collections List tab: https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/collections/134/wwii-daily-reports-missing-dead-wounded-pows/