Release 230 000 World War I Wills/Letters by Soldiers on their way to battle

[Midlad]

Hello all,
            Yes I got it to work no bother at all desperate to see what it says.

             My great uncle was in the Scots Guards both his number and year of birth are correct.

            I have a framed photo of him in his uniform which hung in my great grandmother's bedroom  .
I also have letters he wrote to my grandfather in 1914 which I treasure I am thankful my grandparents were hoarders and never threw anything out.

Midlad
 

[paulalou]

I've found the will of my grandads uncle, a career soldier, who died in Burma in 1945. I'd love to know what information the will and associated letters (if any) contain. He never married but I'm surprised as a career soldier, and aged 36 at the time of his death, he never wrote a proper will.

I've also sent feedback thanking them for making such a fantastic resource available online but that i'm getting an error message at payment.

[millymcb]

Good news.. the payment function appears to be working now

Milly

[LizzieW]

Thanks Milly.  I've just ordered the will for my g.uncle which will be available in 10 working days.  He was orphaned by the time he was 8 and put in an orphanage by his eldest brother who went off to join the army.  When he was 14 he left the orphanage and joined the same regiment as his brother.  He stayed in the army until he was killed in France on 24 November 1917.  I'm really interested to see who is named in his will.  I'm assuming it was his older brother - unless he had a fiancée somewhere.

Lizzie

[annieoburns]

No sign of  my grandfather's will.  He was a soldier in Egypt where he died in 1917.  What proportion of total deaths are covered by these records?  Is this the complete archive?  Or were only some regiments included.  He was only 23 years, just married and with one child.  We have very few items of his, it would be lovely to have another memento.

[dawnsh]

Originally, the estimate was 300,000 wills but this is a small number compared to how many men served in WW1.

At one time they were stored in damp conditions so some may not have survived the storage and digitisation process.

[millymcb]

In one of the articles I read about it yesterday someone said these wills represent about a quarter of British Empire soldiers who died in the war - although of the four names I searched for I found three listed.

 www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2404841/Online-archive-reveal-poignant-wills-personal-letters-230-000-WWI-soldiers.html#ixzz2dV8Dd7Ti 

Milly

[sami]

Thanks for posting this information. Found my grandfather's half brother (who also happened to be the fiancé of one of my great aunts from my grandmother's side of the family) and successfully placed an order. I'm delighted with this 

sami

[Midlad]

Hello everybody ,
                     Delighted to say I have had an email to say the will was available .

Downloaded it and as I suspected he left everything to his mother .

Midlad