Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Book excerpt: Whether you are interested in the career of an individual service woman or just want to know more about the part played by service women in a particular war or campaign, this is the book for you. Assuming that the reader has no prior knowledge of service women, Mary Ingham explains which records survive, where they can be found and how they can help in your research. She also vividly describes the role of women with the armed services from the Crimean War of the 1850s to the aftermath of the First World War and offers an insight into what the records can tell you about the career of an ancestor who served at home or abroad. From the army schoolmistresses to the Womens Land Army, her account outlines the history of each service, describes uniforms and gives examples of daily life and likely experiences. This is the book you need if you want to follow up those clues in your familys history stories heard from older relatives, pictures in family photograph albums, handed-down uniforms, badges or medals that seem to indicate that one of your women ancestors served in wartime.