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Military Overseas
BMD Certificates
This page tells you how to find overseas BMD certificates for British forces and their families serving abroad. First you must use an index get a reference number so that you can
order a certificate
from the General Record Office (GRO). The indexes are split into Deaths in Major Wars, and Other BMDs - see below.
Note
Have you reached here from another site? Click if you would like an overview of
overseas BMD certificates
for the UK.
My uncle, Frederick Robert Watkins, was in the RAF during World War 1. Luckily, he survived. However, very many of his comrades were killed, and sadly details of their overseas BMD certificates can be found in the GRO records.
Deaths in Major Wars
The records are not usually very informative. You may only get the name, rank, number, presumed date, and place, which may be vague (for example, just France). The indexes are as follows:
- Boer War 1899-1902 – army for Natal and South African Forces.
- World War 1 Deaths 1914-1921 – army, navy, some RAF (Royal Flying Corp were registered by the army).
- World War 2 Deaths 1939-1948 – army, navy, RAF, Indian Services.
I don’t know of any free online resources at the moment – do let me know if you find any. However, there are sources that you must pay for. These include:
- This allows you to search on a number of criteria. The website gives full details. However, it's on a pay-per-view basis, so can work out expensive. Also, it doesn't include the Indian Services for World War 2.
S&N Genealogy
- Not strictly online, but this company does sell CDs. Go to the Data CDs option, select Genealogical Research CDs, then chose the World War 1 or World War 2 option. You'll see a choice of CDs, including the World War Deaths option. These cost £29.95 at the time of writing.
Of course, it's always worth ringing your local library, family history society, LDS family records centre, etc, first, when you're trying to find overseas BMD certificates for the World Wars.
For more information, you’re probably better to look at service records. There are also other online sites with helpful information about researching the World Wars. I’ll write more about this at a later date, so do pop back.
Other BMDs
For overseas BMD certificates, excluding the Boer War, World War 1 and World War 2 deaths. Most of these indexes for pre-1965 can be viewed for free at
www.familyrelatives.org.
The exceptions are the Regimental Indexes for Marriages and Deaths.
- Regimental indexes 1761-1924 – BMDs of soldiers and their families. These include UK regimental births from 1761 and overseas from 1790. The marriages are not indexed, so you must know the regiment.
- Army chaplains’ indexes 1761-1880 – some may be the same as from the regimental records. (These are for baptisms and burials, rather than births and deaths).
- Army BMDs 1881-1965 – members of the army and their families for events outside the UK.
- British Armed Forces BMDs 1965-present – members of the army, navy, RAF and their families while abroad.
- Ionian Islands 1818-1864 – These Greek islands (Corfu, Paxos, Leukas, Ithaca, Cephalonia, Zante and Cerigo) were ruled by the British from 1818 to 1864. These records concern the garrison stationed there, and comprise: chaplains’ returns BMDs, civil registration births and marriages, and military registration BMDs.
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