Conducting Your Own Search

I started this topic when I was searching for information about my Father-In-Laws brother, and my Mother-In-Laws uncle. I wanted to give them the gift of a 'Book of Remembrance' for them. They knew when they died and about where, but that was all the information they had. After starting my search I found that there are many places to search for personal information and unit information. The main way to go about it is to search the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and the Veterans Affairs website and search the 'Virtual War Memorial' page for the name of the person your researching. Secondly, you'll need to search for whatever units are listed in your personnel search. The unit search will be conducted from the Veterans Affairs website and by using any of the popular search engines in use today. I prefer Google, but you can pick your own. With a search engine search you'll have to weed out the extraneous listings to get the listing you want, but you'll get lots of information about Canadian units that fought from the beginning of Canada to today. get you lots of information about when, where, and how the units served in their respective theatres of operations.

The amount of information is overwhelming at times and the unit designations, assignments, name changes, attachments, etc. can be totally confusing, but if you stick with it and keep searching, before long you'll have a fairly good understanding of the make-up and history of the Canadian Military at War.

Following is a listing of GREAT sites for doing research on the person or unit of your choice:

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
  Here you can research for persons from any of the British Commonwealth countries.

• Virtual War Memorial
  Canada's version of the 'Common Wealth War Graves Commission' site. This site will give a lot of information about the person your researching (if he/she is listed at all.)

• The Six Books of Remembrance
  The Six Books of Remembrance cover World War One, World War Two, Newfoundland, Korean War, South African War/Nile Expedition, and the Merchant Navy. 

• Canada's Department of National Defense (DnD)
  Great site for listings of current and past unit involvement. This site list even the humanitarian and peacekeeping actions of the Canadian Military.

• The Valour and the Horror
  This site is great for looking up the battles and actions of the Canadian Regiments.

This is of course only a small listing of the available

Go To Page: 1 2