WWI Resources

During the Centenary we aim to make us much archive material as possible available as resources for family researchers, pupils, historians and others with an interest in WWI via the website.

As well as documentary sources such as school registers & class lists of pupils, house books, reminiscences, biographical material and school magazines, we also have photograph albums and memorials. There are plans – subject to funding – for a dedicated memorial website which would provide a portal into the collection for those researching our fallen or those who served.

School Registers

Thanks to the generosity of the OG Club in providing money for scanning and indexing we will shortly be able to make our pre-war school registers available to researchers interested in OGs who served in the conflict.  SDS Heritage who designed our digital magazine archive have scanned the three registers and will provide a similar searchable index of names which we hope will be an invaluable asset to family and other historians, providing information on birth date and place, parents and occupation, education and future career.

Tracing your military ancestors workshop

We are participating in a WWI family history workshop held in Holt Library on 5th May 2015 which is being run in conjunction with the Norfolk Record Office, Norfolk Heritage Centre, and the Norfolk Regimental Museum. Members of the local community will receive guidance from professionals on researching family members who fought in the conflict.  Those with Gresham’s connections or interests will be invited to visit our archive and be given further assistance in finding information from our collection.

Invitation

We would like to extend an invitation to anyone with Gresham’s military ancestors to get in touch for help and advice on finding information held in our archive, and of course, we would be delighted to hear from those who wish to provide us with documentary material or artefacts to add to what we have for posterity.

Useful websites

A selection of useful sites for researching WWI ancestors.  Newspaper archives and social media have not been included but can also be fruitful.

Ancestry and other family history websites provide a wealth of sources such as census returns, immigration records, birth & death indexes, etc. http://www.ancestry.co.uk

Commonwealth War Graves Commission can provide details of regiment, medals, relatives, burial & cemetery. http://www.cwgc.org

Imperial War Museum site Lives of the First World War is a portal for service records http://www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org

The National Archive holds service records of WWI officers and medals issued. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Regimental Museums – many regiments have their own museums and websites such as the Norfolk Regiment. http://royalnorfolkregimentalmuseum.org.uk

Norfolk Library and Information Service has an interesting site with photographs and a blog on WWI related topics. http://norfolkinworldwar1.org