Miltary Database?

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Hi All

For reasons I will not go into, I need to find out whether a person was or was not in the Royal Marines.

Is this possible to do using freely available data?

Regards, Martin

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

I would say not, but maybe someone on here knows better.

Tony

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Some of the genealogy sites have access to military records and you can often sign up for the first month for free.

I took advantage of a free month on Ancestry to find out a bit about my grandmother who died of flu in 1918 shortly after giving birth to my father. A hint on the site led to a military record that showed that my grandmother had a brother who also died of flu whilst a RM on a boat in Washington DC and is buried in Arlington National Cemetary.

Rod

[An OtherParticipant @another21905]

Hi Martin,

I typed "how to find out if someone was in the Royal Marines" into DuckDuckGo, and got back a long list of possibilities (too many to list here) – may be worth a try.

An

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

There may be facebook stuff but proper records would always be kept out of the public domain for obvious reasons

WW1 stuff got released what? 20 years ago?

[JAParticipant @ja]

Martin

What do you mean by "freely available"? Free?

Various family history data bases on the internet will have the details but you have to pay unless, like Roderick, you find a short term free offer.

There is one truely free "data base", The National Archives at Kew. They will have the original documents and will happily let you see them or a copy given any time constaints. However you have to get to Kew. They have good web sites and are more than helpful to the ordinary public.

I do have Ancestry membership. I am paying for the transcribing of free data.

JA

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Need to know the right people to get a definitive answer from official records. I know such a person but generally you'd have to have a pretty good reason before they would help.

Internet search and freely findable information may not be reliable. Plenty of fantasy folk out there wanting to impress people.

With so many people on social media its often possible to find one who shaved in at the same time and would have met the person concerned.

Clive

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Martin doesn't say his enquiry is historic. The information won't be public if the person of interest is alive. It is possible to ask the Ministry of Defence, but personal information isn't handed out with the rations. Solid reasons and bona fides required.

There is a free database of WW2 Royal Navy deaths.

Otherwise, for historic people, Ancestry.com and similar sites are the best bet. When I used Ancestry about 10 years ago they had very little apart from census data but since then lots of other data has been added, including military records.

Unfortunately probably necessary to take out a subscription and certainly necessary to learn how to use the site. The sites are good fun when tracing a family tree as an interest, less suited to finding one-off individuals. Rarely as easy as typing in a name and pressing Send. More like puzzle solving, where clues are followed until the individual is identified. Unusual names are much easier than common ones, and it's surprising how often people in the past wandered away from their birth certificates.

Might get lucky and find a forum member actively researching their family who could do a search for you? Otherwise, hope a free trial will find the chap, or cough up for a subscription

Dave

[Chris Pearson 1Participant @chrispearson1]

If he was an officer, he will be in the RN/RM officers' list.

[Martin King 2Participant @martinking2]

Clive,

” Plenty of fantasy folk out there wanting to impress people”

that’s what I am trying to get to the bottom of!

someone I may have to deal with on something important, just sounds “off” somehow.

Martin

[Andy_GParticipant @andy_g]

Posted by Martin King 2 on 28/07/2023 14:11:39:

someone I may have to deal with on something important, just sounds “off” somehow.

Martin

Doesn't run a bicycle repair shop on Anglesey, does he?

He used to be a General Manager at a place where I used to work.Technically, he was in the Royal Marines, but never made it through basic training. Didn't stop him regaling people with his gruesome tales of daring-do and unfeasible feats (it turned out that Len Deighton must have been with him for most of them). Completely brazen / psychopathic personality.

I don't think there's any public record that can be used to verify this sort of thing (we looked very hard once suspicions were aroused). A real ex-RM knew through his contact that this person was a Walter Mitty, and in the end 'whistle-blew' to our mutual employer. The employer responded by disciplining the whistle-blower for breaching confidentiality! Walter Mitty was also disciplined, but not sacked!

It's a funny old world…

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 28/07/2023 11:16:03:

…

There is a free database of WW2 Royal Navy deaths.

…

Thanks for posting this link, Dave. I've been researching one of the bell-ringers of St Mary, Portsea who was lost at sea in WW2, and this helped me to clear up a mystery about which ship he was serving on.

George

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Residents of Hampshire can access Ancestry.com free of charge at the Hampshire Records Office in Winchester or at their local Public Library.

Other Counties may differ!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[Chris Pearson 1Participant @chrispearson1]

Posted by Andy_G on 28/07/2023 14:39:14:

Technically, he was in the Royal Marines, but never made it through basic training.

So he was an RM recruit, but no green lid = not a Royal Marine; although he is a veteran.

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