Imperial War Museum

The Department of Printed Books has an unparalleled collection of journals. Regimental, ship, squadron or station journals can be extremely useful to the family historian. For details of a unit during peacetime they will provide more information than can be found in a regimental history, and if your ancestor was a sportsman or interested in amateur dramatics he is quite likely to be mentioned by name. Obituaries as well as births and marriages columns can prove useful for those tracing military families. There is a splendid collection of trench newspapers (one of which, Blighty, was recently republished as part of the Departmental publishing programme), and papers such as SEAC (now so fragile it can only be consulted on microfilm) and The Cologne Post can provide a good idea of what it was like to be part of South East Asia Command in the Second World War or of the Army of Occupation of Germany after the First. Newsletters are received from various old comrades associations and these might be be able to assist in contacting individuals who may have served with the relative you are tracing.

A listing of the various journals subscribed to, including their addresses, has been issued by the Department of Printed Books as part of their ongoing publishing programme. This programme makes available items which have long been out of print and are expensive on the second hand market. Of particular interest to the family historian might be the official history volumes, which provide the definitive account of the actions in the various theatres of war. Several volumes of rolls of honour for some of the Battalions of the Royal Naval Division have already been published - Hood, Hawke, Howe, Drake, Nelson and Anson Battalions - this information has been compiled from handwritten and typescript registers held by the Department. Other items include Vita Sackville-West's The Women's Land Army and various historical pamphlets such as Eve in Overalls, The Schools in Wartime and Make do and Mend - these are reproductions of contemporary items from the Second World War, which will be of interest to school children from an historical point of view as well as to those who remember the booklets from the first time around.