- Searching For Records -
Search- This site (General)
- This site (Portsmouth Naval Memorial)
- This site (Portsmouth WW2 Memorial)
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission site
- Other Resources
- Notes on Printing Pages on this Site
We anticipate that this site will mainly be used by visitors searching for information about former members of their families or about specific aspects of history. For your convenience we have included below some tips about searching the records and provide various means of carrying out searches from this page.
1. Searching This Site
The site is primarily organised as a directory of locations. These are defined on the Memorials page. In addition we have extracted the names of all ships mentioned on the memorials and presented them in alphabetical order on the Ship Index page. The whole site is searchable by filling in a keyword in the box at the top right of each page and pressing the 'search' button.
Note: the names on all memorials have been transcribed exactly as written. This means that there is no common format for the names, first names may be shown in full, as initials or in a shortened form, and may come before or after the surname. There may or may not be full stops after initials.
2. Searching the Portsmouth Naval Memorial
This feature is currently restricted to searches on surnames and ships. Select the search criteria from the drop down box and type the surname or ship name (including "HMS" or other title). Please remember that this memorial contains only names of those lost at sea and have no known grave. For those killed at sea but buried ashore, please search the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site.
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If you would like a photograph of a panel on the Naval Memorial, please check it's number at the CWGC site, or via the search box above, and Download Here. They are all less than 500kb in size.
3. Searching the Portsmouth WW2 Memorial
Funds for the World War II memorial are currently being raised. A simple stone memorial has already been erected near the WW1 Cenotaph but the individual names exist solely on a database. In the meantime our copy of the database can be searched using the facility below, but it may not be as up to date as that version maintained by the City Council. Please remember that the names in this database are listed as having some personal connection with the City of Portsmouth. They may have been born in Portsmouth or were living in the city at the time they enlisted. Because of errors in official records some names may have been omitted. If you believe this applies to a relative please contact the City Council who will investigate further.
We suggest that you search the database using a Surname search only. You may also search on a Ship (eg. HMS Hood) or Regiment (eg. Hampshire) name but these may return large numbers of names.
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4. Searching the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site
This site contains a huge database of names which is searchable by surname, initials, war, year of death, regiment, force and nationality. The best way of using this database is to put just the surname into the search, but if this generates a high number of returns, try again with the initials included (leave a space between initials and do not include full stops between them). With more common names you may have to try a third time, filling in whatever information you already have.
SEARCH THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION SITE
5. Other Resources
The Public Record Office
The National Archives
The National Archives (RN Service Records 1853-1923)
Historical Manuscripts Commission
FamilyRecords.gov.uk
Ministry of Defence - (How to obtain service records)
National Maritime Museum
Allies In War
Royal Naval Museum Library
6. Notes on Printing Pages on this Site
Wherever possible we have designed the pages on this site to adjust their width according to the width of the viewing and printing screen. In many cases however we have had to introduce fixed width pages which will not adjust themselves in the same way. If you attempt to print these pages, you will find that you lose part of the right hand side of the page. Where this happens we recommend that either you change the default layout of the printed page from 'Portrait' mode to 'Landscape' or alter the margins on the printed page to, say, 2.5cm. With some experimentation you can usually obtain a print of the full page.
To ensure that you obtain a more printer friendly copy we have also arranged for the print version of our pages to omit the header and footer. Good luck with your printing.
