Unfortunately, we are unable to offer a general historical enquiry service or help with family history research. We are a small team and we simply do not have enough staff to do this. However, we know that many people have a Gunner in their family tree, so we have put together a number of detailed research guides which will help anyone researching an individual Gunner, or a Royal Artillery unit.

We have the following research guides that can be download via the links at the bottom of the page:

  • Gunners who served before 1921 – advice for researching men who served in the Royal Artillery before 1921/1922, including those who served in WW1.
  • Gunners who served after 1921 - advice for researching people who served in the Royal Artillery after 1921/1922, including those who served in WW2.
  • Gunner units – advice and sources for anyone researching a Royal Artillery unit.
  • Orders, decorations and medals – information on medals and other decorations, and advice on researching the reasons for an award.
  • WW2 Tracer Cards – a specific guide on how to interpret Royal Artillery Tracer Cards. The Cards can be found online on the commercial genealogy site www.ancestry.co.uk.

Please note that we do not hold any service records.

Surviving service records from before 1921/1922 are held by The National Archives. Many have not survived. Service records from after 1921/1922 are either at The National Archives or are still with the Ministry of Defence. Our research guides provide more information on this.

If you wish to look at specific records within our collection you can visit our Archives (see here for more information) or you can use our paid Document Research Service (see here). Our paid Document Research Service is only for enquiries about the records in our own collection - we can’t carry out research online or in other archives or museums.

If you are looking for someone to help you carry out research more widely, then the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives is a good place to look for a professional researcher (www.agra.org.uk).