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With online censuses, you usually get image files plus an index and sometimes a transcript as well. GenDocs (www.gendocs.demon.co.uk) has a useful, though brief, list of some of the abbreviations and terms used.

Census data includes information on military and naval personnel at home and overseas, under the name of the barracks or station. However a search using the individual's ordinary personal name will also find them. There are no entries in the 1901 census for the troops in South Africa on census night, so if you have a (usually male) relative you know was alive in 1901 but not listed in the census, he may have been in the Boer War. If so, unfortunately in this instance, the web is of no use to you.

Army records

The main source of army records is The National Archives (TNA) at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk, which keeps pre-1914 records and WWI records up to the end of 1920 for enlisted men and up to 1922 for officers. Sadly, a lot of records were destroyed during a bombing raid in 1940 and of those that did survive many were badly damaged by fire and water. If the records you need cannot be found online then you are going to have to go to the National Archives at Kew, Surrey.

The army record will include details of name, rank, service number, date of death and (sometimes) age, next of kin and next-of-kin's address, as well as height, complexion and physical appearance. This should help to confirm that you are researching the right

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person.

Soldiers' records after 1920 and officers' records after 1922 are held by the Ministry of Defence (www.mod.uk), which will currently release information only to next of kin for a £25 photocopying fee.

You may also find general information on service conditions and some detail about your ancestor's unit, ship or squadron at military museum websites. Try the National Army Museum at Chelsea (www.national-army-museum.ac.uk). If you visit the museum, the staff will identify items such as cap badges and uniforms. You could also try the Imperial War Museum (www.iwm.org.uk), the National Maritime Museum (www.nmm.ac.uk) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum (www.rafmuseum.org.uk).

For a more rounded picture of your ancestor's military heritage, you can visit his regiment's webpages. The Army Museums Ogilvy Trust (www.armymuseums.co.uk) has an index by name and region. It may be that your ancestor's regiment has been disbanded; even the government doesn't keep records of disbanded regiments. However, surviving records could be held at a regimental headquarters or museum, a private or local authority museum or the National Army Museum. Fortunately, one or two private websites are monitoring this information.

One website that claims to have pages for every regiment of the Empire and Commonwealth is Land Forces of Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth (www.regiments.org). Each page has information such as name changes and lineage, battalion service histories, battle honours, badges, lists of colonels, alliances, bibliographies and so on. In addition, it claims to have links to every known regimental page on the internet (official, historical, biographical, and re-enactment). This site aims to help you trace the changes in designations of regiments and the complexities of their lineages.