Forces War Records ‘WWI Casualty Records’ collection has now reached the milestone of over 2 million individual records transcribed and available to search by name. The collection is compiled from the ‘Daily War Office Casualty Lists’ and the ‘War Office Weekly Casualty List’ by His Majesty’s Stationery Office.

The Casualty lists are an excellent resource to use when researching a soldier who fought in the Great War 1914-18.

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At the start of the First World War, it was decided to publish casualty list for soldiers who were reported killed, died of wounds or accident, been declared as missing, wounded or admitted to hospital with shell-shock. The ‘Daily War Office Casualty Lists’ were first published on 1st September 1914 and printed within various newspapers such as The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Irish Times and The Scotsman until August 1917. In August, it was decided that newspapers would no longer be able to print the casualty list in full due to the shortage of paper and the effect of morale on the public seeing the great number of casualties daily. Instead, the Daily Casualty List were published as the ‘Weekly Casualty List’ by His Majesty’s Stationery Office. Forces War Records has now transcribed all the records published within The Daily Telegraph Newspaper and we are very proud to be working with the National Library of Scotland to transcribe their original collection of the ‘Weekly Casualty List by His Majesty’s Stationery Office’.

These records are of enormous value to researchers, for in many cases the information that a man appeared in a list will not be available elsewhere. Please note that the appearance of a name on the list was some time after the man became a casualty – usually around a month or so. Armed with this information and the War Diary of the man’s unit, the circumstances in which he became a casualty can be researched. Also, you can use the exclusive Forces War Records ‘WWI Troop Movements and ORBATS’ interactive map to follow your ancestor's footsteps while listening to the in-depth and highly detailed commentary.

The collection available on Force War Records is likely to include the following:

Surname
First Name or Initials
Regimental Numbers
Rank
Regiment or Corps
Battalion
Attached Unit
Gallantry Awards
Fate (i.e: wounded, captured, shell shock, missing etc
Duty Location
Date of Incident
Place of Enlistment (given as Resided Town)

Please be aware that due to the way we collate and cross-reference our databases, some records will contain more information than that listed above.

N.B. Soldiers who were killed are to be found in the ‘Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1919’ collection and not within this new collection.