Records for the War Dead of WW1

Names on the Rugeley War Memorial, Staffordshire

War Grave Agency Records

If you think a relative may have died in the First World War it should be possible to confirm this by looking at the records held by one of the war grave agencies responsible for the care and maintenance of graves and official memorials for the war dead of the First World War. In most cases the records are available to view for free online. Where they are not, enquiries can be made by letter or telephone and advice will be given to help you locate your relative.

If you can find your relative as a named casualty in the records, you will be able to see the date of death, the location of the grave or place of commemoration together with details about that cemetery or memorial and where to find it. Depending on the type of records held by the relevant war grave agency you may also be able to find details for next of kin if they were recorded and, in the case of British and Commonwealth casualties, find additional invaluable detail such as the age of the casualty, the Service number and the military unit.

Roll of Honour

In addition to the war grave agencies there may be other records confirming the death of a person whilst serving in the military. These may take the form of official and private rolls of honour compiled after the First World War. These may be national or local. These might be a war memorial for a town or village or lists of names as rolls of honour dedicated to the men of a particular workplace, church, sports club, school or and so on.

Where to Find War Grave Records

Information about the war grave agencies and other records for war dead available for you to search is given below.

Records for British & Commonwealth WW1 Dead

Headstone for British soldier S/6529 Private H H Dilks MM, serving with The Queens, who died 26th March 1918 aged 19. He is buried in Tyne Cot Military Cemetery on the Ypres Salient battlefield.
Headstone for British soldier S/6529 Private H H Dilks MM, serving with The Queens, who died 26 March 1918 aged 19.

If you think a relative may have died in the First World War whilst serving with the British & Commonwealth forces it should be straightforward to find a record of their death.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) holds a register of the death of every member of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Merchant Navy) and Civilians from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa who died in the Great War of 1914-1918.

Go to our information page about the CWGC, how to link to the “Debt of Honour” register with its list of names, grave or commemoration locations, cemeteries and memorials, together with an explanation of the sort of information you will be able to find:

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Soldiers and Officers Died in the Great War 1914-1919

A list of British soldiers who died during the Great War was compiled by His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) in 1921. The list is contained within 80 volumes. A list of Officers' Died in the Great War was also produced.

The record for an individual contained in this listing does not include the location of a grave. The record does usually contain the following information:

The listings for “Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1918” can be consulted in person at the Imperial War Museum London or The National Archives, Kew, Surrey:

Website: www.iwm.org

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

The listing of “Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-1918” is available to buy on CD Rom. The 80 volumes have been captured as a digital database and can be purchased from the Naval & Military Press. (The CD Rom may be available to loan from a library.)

Website: www.naval-military-press.org

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Cross of Sacrifice

Cross of Sacrifice is a record of all officers of all services who died during the First World War whilst serving with the British, Commonwealth and Colonial regiments and corps. It has been compiled as an alphabetical record by S D and D B Jarvis and was published in 1993. Volumes may be available to see from a library loan or can be seen at the Imperial War Museum London and the National Archives at Kew:

Website: www.iwm.org

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Royal Navy and Royal Marines War Graves Roll

War memorial for ranks and ratings of the Royal Navy from the city of Plymouth and Australia, South Africa, Newfoundland, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Fiji, Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Kenya, Malaya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Burma who were lost at sea in 1914-1918 and in 1939-1945.
War memorial for ranks and ratings of the Royal Navy of Plymouth who were lost at sea.

The names of Royal Navy and Royal Marine officers and ratings who died in the First World War are listed in the War Graves Roll. The information includes:

Registers of Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel killed and wounded between August 1914 and 1929 are recorded.

The original card index of the naval officers (commissioned and warrant) who died in service between 1914 and 1920 is available.

The War Graves Roll, the registers of killed and wounded and the card index of officers killed are available to view at the National Archives, Kew, Surrey. For the catalogue references go to:

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force Casualties

Headstone for British airman Second Lieutenant L C J Barlow, serving with The Royal Air Force, who died 18th June 1918 aged 20. He is buried in Villers Bretonneux Military Cemetery on the Somme battlefield.
Headstone for British airman Second Lieutenant L C J Barlow serving with Royal Air Force, who died 18 June 1918 aged 20.

Casualty cards, giving details of the casualty, the aircraft involved and sometimes the next of kin details are available. These are held at the R.A.F. Museum Hendon in north London.

Website: www.rafmuseum.org.uk

There are also records held at the National Archives at Kew which relate to R.F.C. and R.A.F. casualties, records of squadrons, officers reported missing and messages from the Germans about missing pilots. For catalogue references go to:

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Merchant Navy

The National Archives hold Registers of Deceased Seamen for each year of 1914 to 1918. These provide information for:

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Rolls of Honour

A Roll of Honour may exist for a particular military unit and might be published in a unit history. There may be a mention of the individual you are searching for in a Roll of Honour for the company he worked for, the school he went to, or the church local to where he lived.

War Memorials

The First World War memorial in the town centre of Rugeley, Staffordshire.
The First World War memorial in the town centre of Rugeley, Staffordshire.

Most towns and villages in the United Kingdom have a war memorial listing the names of those who died serving their country in the First World War. Those villages whose men all returned safely and which do not, therefore, have a memorial are known as the “Thankful Villages”. In many cases names of those men from the locality who were killed during the Second World War have been added to the memorials of 1914-1918.

War memorials vary in shape and size, they may be official or privately funded, some have fallen into disrepair, but many are carefully looked after.

The UK National Inventory of War Memorials (UKNIWM) has been established as a project to locate all the war memorials in the United Kingdom and to record the names on them. A television programme on Channel 4 called “Lost Generation” started collecting a nationwide database of the names on war memorials and this data has recently been passed to the UKNIWM. The work to build up the database is being managed by the Imperial War Museum London. For more information go to the UKNIWM website at:

Website: www.ukniwm.org.uk

Newspapers

The Times national newspaper included lists of those killed in action or who died of wounds. Local newspapers often included lists and photographs of local men killed or who died of wounds.

The British Library Newspaper Library at Colindale in north London has an archive to view. Local libraries may also hold archive copies of regional newspapers dating back to the 1914-1918 period.

Website: www.bl.uk

Death Certificates

The Death Certificates for British war dead are held by the General Register Office. Enquiries can be made to:

Certificate Services Section, General Register Office, PO Box 2, Southport, Merseyside PR8 2JD

Telephone: 0300 123 1837

Fax: 01704 55 00 13

Email: certificate.services@ips.gsi.gov.uk

Website: www.directgov.uk

French and Belgian Death Certificates

British soldiers who died between 1914 and 1920 in a hospital or outside of the battle zone in France or Belgium were issued with a French or Belgian death certificate. These records will be in French or Flemish.

They are available to view at the National Archives in Kew, Surrey and are archived with the catalogue reference of RG 35/45-69:

Website: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Records for Belgian Military Dead in WW1

Gravestone for Belgian soldier Alphonse Martens, who served with 28th Regiment. He was born in Antwerp on 12th June 1892 and died on 28th September 1918. The grave is in Houthulst Belgian Military Cemetery north of Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium.
Gravestone for Belgian soldier Alphonse Martens, who served with 28th Regiment and who died on 28 September 1918.

Records for Belgian war dead of the First World War are held in the archive at the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ieper (Ypres). For information you can enquire via the Research Centre of the In Flanders Fields Museum. The email and website links are at:

Email: Kenniscentrum@ieper.be

Website: www.inflandersfields.be

Records for French Military Dead in WW1

Le Ministère des Pensions

Cross for French soldier Jean Henri Buthod, serving with the 62nd B.C.A. (Battalion de Chasseurs Alpins) who died on 9th June 1918. This burial is in the British Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery.
Cross for French soldier Jean Henri Buthod, serving with the 62nd B.C.A. (Battalion de Chasseurs Alpins) who died on 9th June 1918.

The French war graves agency, Le Ministère des Pensions, was founded during the First World War and cares for French military graves from WW1 to the present day.

For our information page about tracing French military graves go to:

Le Ministère des Pensions

Mémoire des Hommes Website

In memory of the many thousands of French servicemen who have served their country at times of conflict since 1914 the French Ministry of Defence has provided a website (in French, English, German and Spanish) providing thousands of digitalized biographical records. Visit the website at:

Website: www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr

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Records for German Military Dead in WW1

Cross for German soldiers Musketier Ernst Creuzburg who died on 6th November 1916 and Musketier August Schmidt who died on 9th November 1916. The burials are in the Neuville Vitasse German Cemetery near Arras in France.
Cross for German soldiers Musketier Ernst Creuzburg who died on 6 November 1916 and Musketier August Schmidt who died on 9 November 1916.

Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK)

The German war graves agency, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge (VDK), was formally established after the First World War. Individuals can be traced online via the VDK's website. For a history of the organisation and how to contact the VDK go to our page at:

Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge

Records for Italian War Dead in WW1

Cross for an Italian soldier named Zilio Battista who is buried in the Belgian Military Cemetery at Houthulst north of Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium.
Cross for an Italian soldier named Zilio Battista who is buried in the Belgian Military Cemetery at Houthulst north of Ieper (Ypres) in Belgium.
Commissariato generale per le onoranze ai Caduti di guerra

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Russian WW1 Graves in France

Russian military cemetery St. Hilaire le Grand on the Marne battlefield in France.
Russian military cemetery St. Hilaire le Grand, Marne, France.

There are almost 1,000 Russian WW1 military graves on the Marne battlefield. They are cared for by the French war graves agency Le Ministère des Pensions. See our page for information about the French war graves agency:

Le Ministère des Pensions

Records for WW1 War Dead of the United States of America

Cross for American soldier Philip J Fay, Private 1st Class, serving with the 310th Infantry in the 78th Division. He was from Rhode Island and he died 22nd September 1918. This burial is in the American military cemetery at St. Mihiel in France.
Cross for American soldier Philip J Fay, Private 1st Class, serving with the 310th Infantry in the 78th Division and who died on 22 September 1918.

The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) is the war graves agency responsible for the care and maintenance of WW1 graves of soldiers serving with the United States Armed Forces during the First World War. For information about the agency and its work go to our page at:

American Battle Monuments Commission

International Red Cross Records

The Red Cross was used as a “go-between” between the warring nations, whereby the locations of burials of military dead from an enemy were recorded and were passed to the enemy nation via the Red Cross. The Red Cross made copies of this information and the archive where this information has been stored since 1918 has only recently been “discovered” by British military historian Peter Barton. The records have been safely stored in a basement of the Red Cross Museum in Geneva but were an unknown source of such information to military historians until now. The original records which had been passed to the United Kingdom, France and Germany are believed to have been destroyed by enemy action in the Second World War.

The Red Cross is already working on a project to digitize the archive so that families may be able to access the records and possibly trace the original burial location of a relative who has been recorded as missing. The Red Cross hopes to be able to make the archive available for online searching in 2014.

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Related Topic

WW1 Research and Sources of Information

Part of a British Army Trench Map 28NE3 Edition 7B (German trenches corrected to 24.10.17) showing Fitzclarence Farm to the north east of Inverness Copse on the Ypres Salient battlefield.
Trench Map 28NE3 Edition 7B with trenches corrected to 24.10.17 showing Fitzclarence Farm.

For more information about where to find archives, military records, official publications, maps, War Diaries, medal records and a variety of research material for tracing family history in the First World War period go to our section on research at:

WW1 Research and Sources of Information