Where to find information?

[sue2white]

My gt grandfather George Stedman was born 29/6/1863 in Worth Sussex.
In 1881 he was a servant to James Field in Cuckfield. RG11/1062/99/5.
In 1898 he married my gt grandmother Florence Pearson in Hastings.
They are found in 1901 RG13/783/72/35

Somewhere between these times he was in the military. Which, where & when I do not know.
Jan1954 kindly told me of the wars going on at that time:

Egyptian Campaign 1882
First Sudan (Gordon Relief) Expedition, Sudan 1884-5
Second Sudan Campaign, Egypt and Sudan 1896-8
Chitral Relief Expedition, Indian North West Frontier 1895
Indian North West Frontier 1897-8

How can I find out whether he was involved in one of these?
I know he went abroad and was quite ill when bitten by a monkey.

Any help welcomed.

Sue

[Kerrywood]

Have all the military buffs gone to bed early?

Failing any other reply ... if he served in the regular army and was discharged to pension, his army service record in WO 97 should give you details of his overseas service. These papers cannot be ordered online but have to be retrieved in person at Kew, either by yourself or by someone visiting on your behalf.

For this period you don't need to know his regiment to find them, since all discharge papers after 1882 are filed alphabetically. I think they should be in WO 97/3940 or (if originally misfiled) in WO 97/6380.

Kerrywood

[v.wells]

Documents online at TNA The National Archives. Here is the link:https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/

Type in Stedman, George
From 1882 To 1900

Quite a few hits and when you find what you want you can order online and get the images back.

[sue2white]

Thank you for your help.
I never know where to look on the TNA. Such a confusing site.

Sue

[Geoffers]

Thank you for your help.
I never know where to look on the TNA. Such a confusing site.

This thread gives information on finding some British Army records. As Kerrywood has mentioned, looking for records is much simpler from 1882.

If you cannot get to Kew, there is a project to scan army records and put them online by 2011.

A few files are already available via documentsonline - these include the misfiled documents mentioned by Kerrywood.

Stick with TNA's web-site and try to work your way around it (it gets easier with practice), in my opinion it is the single most important site for research in England and Wales and also for many British records.