Phil Tomaselli explains how to use online Army Lists to research the officers in your family tree
RECORD MASTERCLASS
Do you think you might have had an ancestor who was a commissioned officer – holding a rank between ensign/second lieutenant and field marshal – but aren’t sure? You can gather a lot of information about individual officers but it’s rarely in one place and, unless you’re lucky, several sources will have to be consulted to build a properly detailed picture. However, the starting point should be one, or both, of two lists.
Commissioned officers always appear in the Army List, an official list published annually from 1740, although not available to the public until 1754. Hart’s Army List, an independent version of the Army List owned and published by Henry George Hart, an army officer, first appeared in 1839. Both are usually indexed by name, so are reasonably easy to search unless your relation had a particularly common one. The annual Army List was supplemented with Quarterly Lists and Monthly Lists from time to time. Hart’s Army List resembles the official Army List but, for many years, was unique because it published details of officers’ war service as well as their current postings. The War Office began adding these details to the Army List from 1881. Unable to keep up with the casualties and commissioning of new officers in the carnage of the First World War, Hart’s ceased publication in 1915.
IMPROVED INDEXING
The Army List changes over time. Early editions aren’t indexed but from 1766 they’re indexed by surname and first name, with lists of officers killed, retired or dismissed. By the end of the 19th century they’re indexed by surname and initial(s). From the 1870s there’s increased information about militia and volunteer officers.
Many lists are online.
Findmypast (findmypast. co.uk) has the Army Lists 1839–1946 in its military section, searchable by name (or initials and surname), as well as ones for 1787, 1798 and 1878, plus two editions of Hart’s, from 1840 and 1888. Ancestry (ancestry. co.uk) has the 1908 edition of Hart’s. The National Archives (TNA) at Kew has made the Army Lists 1754–1879 in series WO 65 freely downloadable as digital microfilm (discovery. nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C14273). These were working copies in the War Office, containing handwritten contemporary notes indicating changes to be made in the
