All About that Place: Military & War: Going Beyond Service Records to Explore Our Military Ancestors

I recently gave a talk about stepping outside service records when researching a military ancestor for my All About that Place talk—hosted by Barbara at Projectkin— and I have compiled a list of repositories for people to check out after they tune in.

Link to the talk.

Please note that I have the most experience with Australian war records. So I am sure I have missed some great — but lesser utilised — resources available in the other Anglosphere countries.

A disclaimer: I did use AI to help me with the countries I am not overly familiar with.

A group of Australian soldiers around their dugout built on the hill behind the landing area at Gallipoli c. 1915.

Australia:

1. National Archives

   1. Holds service records for WW1 & WW2 ALL digitised

   2. Other wartime documents, such as POW registers.
      

2. Australian War Memorial

   1. The creme de la creme of military record digitisation as far as I am concerned. I haven’t come across a better example of how to digitise and present military records than the Australian War Memorial.

   2. Tens of thousands of photographs all tagged with names, units, wars, locations etc… very searchable

   3. Digitised diaries, books, art and other ephemera

   4. and so much more. This is my first stop (after the National Archives) when researching a veteran.
      

3. Australian Virtual War Memorial

   1. I love this site, though it seems to be lesser known. It is exactly what it sounds like, a virtual war memorial. Much like WikiTree or FamilySearch, it is community-led, so some profiles are better sourced and researched than others. But it has a trove of information often not found elsewhere — especially oral histories.
      

4. Trove

   1. Searching old newspapers can often turn up letters or other mentions of veterans.

   2. Trove also holds a large collection of other digitised items such as diaries, letters, etc.
      

5. State-level archives and/or libraries

   1. May hold oral history recordings/transcriptions, autobiographies.

   2. Will hold any pre-federation (1901) records

Afternoon tea with sisters of the 1st Australian General Hospital on Lemnos, November 1916.

Britain:

1. The National Archives (Kew)

   1. Holds British Army, Royal Navy, and RAF service records. WW1 records are mostly accessible via research guides and some digitised subsets; WW2 records have been transferred from the MOD in recent years, but only a fraction are digitised and searchable online (many via Ancestry). You can request copies of service records for individuals born before 1940 and who served after 1918 — delivered as PDF scans. I did this for my great-grandfather, and it was a fairly easy process.
      

2. Imperial War Museum (IWM)

   1. Not a service-record archive, but a goldmine for lived experience. Holds oral histories, photographs, film, documents, art, and objects from WW1 to present conflicts involving Britain and the Commonwealth.

   2. Sound Archive: 33,000+ veteran and civilian interviews (many WW1 recordings freely streamable online).

   3. Film & Photo Archives: 23,000+ hours of combat/newsreel film and ~11 million photographs, including complete British Army D-Day to 1946 operations series.

   4. Documents & Personal Papers: diaries, letters, memoirs, and officers’ papers (subset digitised and searchable via Collections Online).

      Perfect for adding voice, image, and context to a name from a service file.
      

3. British Library / British Newspaper Archive

   1. Holds vast digitised newspaper collections (regional and national) from the 18th–20th centuries. Excellent for finding mentions of veterans in obituaries, honour rolls, local news, and casualty lists. Access often via subscription partners (e.g., Findmypast, Gale).
      

4. Findmypast / Ancestry (UK collections)

   1. Commercial sites but often the most practical way to access digitised British service records, especially WW2 infantry records and casualty lists. Many National Archives WO series are indexed and imaged here.

British soldiers marching, WW1. From the Imperial War Museum.

United States:

1. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

   1. Official repository for US military personnel records (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard). Records open to the public 62+ years after separation; recent records require next-of-kin or veteran request.

   2. Holds Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF), including WW1–present. Some older records (pre-WW1) are digitised; most WW2–Korea–Vietnam records are not fully online but can be requested via eVetRecs or SF-180.
      

2. Library of Congress – Veterans History Project

   1. Digitised oral histories, diaries, letters, and photographs from veterans (mostly WW2, Korea, Vietnam). Community-submitted but curated. Excellent for personal narratives not found in official files.
      

3. Chronicling America

   1. Free, searchable database of historic US newspapers (1690–1963) from the Library of Congress and NEH. Excellent for obituaries, honour rolls, casualty lists, and local mentions of veterans.
      

4. Fold3 (by Ancestry)

   1. Specialises in digitised US military records: pension files, service records, unit histories, photographs, and newspapers. Particularly strong for WW1 and earlier conflicts.
      

5. State archives and historical societies

   1. Often hold National Guard records, state militia rolls, local honour rolls, and newspaper collections not digitised nationally. Worth checking for pre-federal or local service.

Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs. Library of Congress.

Canada:

1. Library and Archives Canada (LAC)

   1. All First World War personnel records are digitised and freely searchable online.

   2. Second World War “War Dead” records (1939–1947) are also digitised and open. Other WW2 service records require ATIP (Access to Information and Privacy) requests and are not fully digitised.

   3. Current/recent records are held by DND and transferred to LAC; access depends on privacy rules.
      

2. Canadian War Museum (Ottawa)

   1. Not a service-record archive (that’s Library and Archives Canada), but a rich companion for personal stories and context. Holds letters, diaries, photographs, oral histories, film, art, and objects from Canada’s colonial wars to present conflicts. Many highlights (diary pages, photo albums, veteran interviews) are searchable and viewable online via the museum’s collection catalogue. Perfect for adding voice, image, and everyday detail to a name from a service file.
      

3. Veterans Affairs Canada – Military History

   1. Provides guidance on accessing service records and links to LAC databases. Does not hold records directly but is a useful starting point for next-of-kin requests.
      

4. Canadian Virtual War Memorial

   1. Community and government-maintained database of Canadian war dead, including biographical details, regiment, and memorial location.
      

5. Canadian War Veterans Memorial Project

   1. Community-driven online memorial documenting Canadians who served in conflicts since 1914. Includes biographical details, service summaries, photographs, and grave/memorial locations — a Canadian counterpart to the Australian Virtual War Memorial and Online Cenotaph.
      

6. Provincial archives and historical societies

   1. May hold local regimental records, newspaper honour rolls, and oral histories not held centrally. Especially useful for pre-Confederation (1867) militia records.

Canadian soldiers feeding French children near the front lines, WW2. War Museum.

New Zealand:

1. Archives New Zealand

   1. Holds digitised service records for ALL known New Zealanders who served in WW1 — over 140,000 files, fully searchable and downloadable.archives.govt+5WW2 records are mostly held by NZDF; some digitised subsets exist (e.g., war dead, gallantry medal recipients, Māori Battalion duplicates), but most require request.
      

2. Auckland War Memorial Museum – Online Cenotaph

   1. The Kiwi equivalent of the Australian Virtual War Memorial but even more richly detailed in places. Over 265,000 records spanning WW1, WW2, South African War, and later conflicts. Includes service numbers, embarkation rolls, photographs, and public-contributed stories.
      

3. NZDF Heritage and Education – Service Records

   1. Holds post-1921 personnel files (including most WW2). Free to request copies for next-of-kin; staff are helpful with interpretation.
      

4. National Library of New Zealand / Papers Past

   1. Digitised newspapers, honour rolls, and local histories. Excellent for obituaries, casualty lists, and home-front mentions of veterans.
      

5. Forces War Records (NZ WW1 collection)

   1. Commercial but complete: 100% of NZ WW1 service records digitised and indexed. Useful if you want a searchable interface with images.

Two NZ soldiers putting on a boxing fight c. 1919. Museum of New Zealand.

International/Joint Effort:

1. Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)

   1. Not an archive per se, but indispensable: holds digitised burial and memorial records for Commonwealth forces from both world wars. Includes name, rank, regiment, date of death, cemetery/memorial location, and often next-of-kin details.
      

2. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Archives – Grand Guerre & Tracing Archives

   1. Holds millions of index cards, lists, and files on prisoners of war, civilian internees, and missing persons from the Franco-Prussian War onward. WW1 archives are fully digitised and searchable online; WW2 and later collections are partially open and undergoing a major digitisation push from 2026. Invaluable for POWs, missing persons, and civilian detainees across all belligerent nations.
      

3. Arolsen Archives (formerly International Tracing Service – ITS)

   1. An 11-nation international commission (including UK, US, France, Germany, Israel, Poland, etc.) oversees this archive of over 200 million digitised pages on victims of Nazism: concentration camp inmates, forced labourers, displaced persons, and Holocaust survivors. Not strictly “military” but essential for anyone researching civilians, partisans, or Allied personnel who ended up in Nazi custody. Freely searchable online; US Holocaust Memorial Museum hosts a mirror.
      

4. Fold3 (by Ancestry)

   1. Commercial, but functions as a de facto international military records hub: aggregates digitised records from US National Archives, UK National Archives, and other national collections. Strong on US and British WW1/WW2 records, but also includes some Commonwealth, German, and other international material. Excellent for prisoner-of-war records, unit diaries, photographs, and newspapers in one place.
      

5. WikiTree / FamilySearch – Military Profiles & Community Trees

   1. Community-led, international genealogy platforms with dedicated military profile fields and source-rich trees. Quality varies by contributor, but they often contain transcriptions, photos, and oral histories not found in official archives — especially for less-digitised nations (e.g., smaller Commonwealth forces, colonial units). Best used as a finding aid, then verified against primary sources.
      

6. National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP)

   1. Holds 5.5+ million Allied aerial reconnaissance photographs over occupied Europe in WW2, with millions more from other theatres and later conflicts. Not person-specific, but invaluable for contextualising where a unit fought, what they saw, and what damage was done. Freely searchable and downloadable via the NCAP website.
      

7. Orders of Battle (WW2 Units Database)

   1. International, volunteer-maintained database of military units (army groups down to battalions) for the US, British Commonwealth, Germany, and other major powers in WW2. Includes commanding officers, subordinate units, and theatre assignments. Excellent for reconstructing a veteran’s unit context when official records are thin.

First World War Group of Russian and French soldiers — photo from the Imperial War Museum.

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