Advanced Military Research - 20th Century Conflict (325)

This three-week course builds upon the material of Your Military Ancestors (224), looking at the records available for Twentieth Century conflict in more detail. We include the two world wars, the Boer War, the Korean War and other conflicts including records for men who undertook National Service.

Some of the sources we consider may already be familiar to you, but many of them won't be. We look at all the records available to research the men and women who served in the two world wars. Many of the records are online for the First World War but this is not the case for the Second World War. We will look at interpreting records and discuss records that have recently been put online or which are being digitised at present.

As well as considering the records themselves, the course looks at their context, the purposes for which they were created and how different records relate to each other. We also consider non-military records at The National Archives and elsewhere that can help researchers. Although few records survive for civilians or those who served in the auxiliary services, such as the Merchant Navy and Home Guard, we will consider the records which are available.

This course is for students who want to know more and in depth about their Twentieth Century military ancestors. It is not necessary to have taken the Your Military Ancestors course to enrol on this course. If you have, you will find there is some revision in Lesson One, but we then move on to the detail.

This course is particularly suitable for those engaged in projects such as researching war memorials.

PLEASE NOTE: This course was originally titled Further Research Skills in the Records of the Two World Wars. We have renamed the course for clarity but it is the same course.

• * Basic records and service organisation
• * Campaign records
• * Home front, pensioners and prisoners

Each lesson includes exercise and activities and a minimum of 1 one hour chat session per week. See How the Courses Work.

STUDENTS SAID: "The exercises were very thought provoking and a good way of using all the knowledge on the course. I thought this may be a "dry" topic however it was not all and I really enjoyed it all. Thank you"

Relevant Countries: GB, Australia, Canada, New Zealand