Completed 90th Regiment - help please

[km1971]

In his time you could get a pension for completing 12 years agreed service. After six years a man could elect to do the last 6 years in the Army Reserve. He would still be discharged after 12 years and received his pension then. If a man had a job while he was an army reservist he would often put that on the Census or BMD records, and not mention the AR. So as you seem to have a 6-7 year gap this might explain it.

If his discharge papers survive in Kew they will be in series WO97. If you cannot get to Kew, Findmypast are putting them online - due 2011.

If his papers do not survive you will find him in the Muster Books and Pay Lists (WO12). These show where he was on the first of each month, but will have to visit Kew to research these.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/militaryhistory/army/step4.htm

Ken

[tecumsah]

Thanks km, I'm very grateful.

I'm discovering more and more each day about my family in the 19th century and increasingly they seem to be connected with the armed services - something we never realised before. But to unravel just where they were, when and for how long and with whom appears to need a visit to Kew.

Trouble is, organising that is about as costly and complex as a military expedition ...

[sparkey]

The George in question is my great great great great grandfather. I have his service record. He signed on in Westminster in 1854, went to the Crimea was involved in the siege of Sevastopol and was invalided out in early 1856 with frostbite. The 90th Regiment is the Perthshire Volunteers as far as I can establish he only served during those years.