A wealth of sites can help you identify and research medals, says Jonathan Scott
BEST WEBSITES
A mystery medal hidden among archived family documents and photos can provide exciting new avenues of research. There are of course plenty of civilian medals, and many of the sites that we recommend this month can also help you to research these. However, our main focus is military medals, which can be broadly divided into service and campaign medals, and awards for gallantry.
A service medal is awarded to all those who meet a set of criteria – service in an area, for a specified minimum period of time, or between set dates. These are different from campaign medals, which tend to be awarded for participating in multiple operations within a certain theatre or towards a defined goal.
In contrast, gallantry medals are awarded for specific deeds. The greatest is the Victoria Cross for valour “in the presence of the enemy”, which was first awarded in 1857.
And medals frequently come with related awards and decorations in the form of clasps, bars, cords or insignia, the latter sometimes attached to medal ribbons. There’s a helpful article on Wikipedia: tinyurl.com/wiki-uk-awards.
ANCESTRY
w ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1262 Ancestry is not the only site with data for researching medals, but it does have vast collections and useful finding aids for both campaign/service medals and awards for gallantry. ‘UK, British Army World War I Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914–1920’, for example, contains about 4.8 million people, or about 90 per cent of soldiers’ names. The cards were created in order to keep in one place details about a soldier’s medal entitlement, and can be searched by first and last name and corps, unit or regiment. In addition, ‘UK, Citations of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, 1914–1920’ contains 25,000 citations for recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal, formerly Britain’s second-highest military honour for non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel.
IDENTIFY MEDALS
w identifymedals.com/article If you’re struggling to identify a particular medal or even a tattered scrap of ribbon, then websites like this one can help. Identify Medals, run by Yisela Alvarez Trentini, has an international focus; a clean, simple design; lots of images; and a host of articles about collecting medals and military history. Most importantly, each medal comes with a detailed description of its characteristics, including the ribbon,
