(repeated as plain text) Hi I think that's mainly the case but there's an organisational element to it. I downloaded sheet 7 of 8 thinking that was the most likely place for SCOON if it was alphabetical, but alas this was a forlorn hope. That section starts with lines 3-34116 who had account 11006 and all who have an army regiment against them in column UDF4 lines 34117- 34280 acc 11007 but UDF4=Null lines 34281-38145 acc 11012 but UDF4=WRAC lines from 38146 with acc 11047 and UDF4=Household Cavalry and so forth (there are a few exceptions in UDF4 - perhaps people attached or seconded). Within each account number they ARE in order of date of birth So for our purposes the need is to try to look at (or reconstruct) all 8 sets - not a simple task given there are 400000+ records - but worth doing; we don't get many databases of that size, in good order and post the 1911 census. But a word of praise for the MoD for actually releasing the data - we don't want to put them off! Also, when I sorted section 7, I could only see 5 obvious errors that sorted to the top, 3 where an odd character had been inserted before the surname and two where the service number had been repeated in the name field. I wonder how many datasets being converted today have a 'major' error rate of 1 in 10000. So well done the folk who did the original conversion. Don Grant Scoon ONS #5642 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ In a message dated 04/12/2014 15:58:10 GMT Standard Time, goons@rootsweb.com writes: Without going back to recheck I believe the original order within each sheet is by date of birth? Sheet 1 has JWS FARMERY born 1895-11-20 (as were the others named either side of him Sheet 6 has H FARMERY born 1892-12-03 (didn't take note of the DOB of those around him) What is useful (my this is an excel thing?) is that a search for a given sequence of letters found it anywhere so FARMER would also find FARMERY and FARMEREY, but not FARMEARY, though being at work there were too many FARMER entries to check them all for any that were more than just FARMER. Alan Moorhouse farmery@one-name.org ----Original message---- >From : goons@rootsweb.com Date : 04/12/2014 - 10:39 (GMTST) To : merryl.wells@one-name.org, merryl.wells@ntlworld.com, goons@rootsweb.com Subject : Re: [G] Index of Records held by the Ministry of Defence Apart from Merryl's difficulty in searching, I wonder what these records are supposed to be. There are eight sets of Excel data with no readily discernible grouping. For instance. looking in vain for my grandfather Abbott, doing a Sort by Name should give Abbotts at the start of whichever set they are in. But one start with the letter B, for instance and ends at J.. He isn't there, although he was in the Territorials after the war, and maybe Territorials didn't count. But neither are several people I searched who were Regulars and should have fitted the criteria. Should we assume the missing "burnt" records are the reason for non-appearance? This is the grouping in the sets: Sheet 1 is Aacking to Woolven Sheet 2 is Aalibon to Zusmanovitz Sheet 3 is Boyd to Jones Sheet 4 is Hingston to Pritchard Sheet 5 is Aaron to Zollo Sheet 6 is Bentley to Middleton Sheet 7 is Aaronson to Zucker Sheet 8 is Aaron to Zyborski Why this peculiar selection by name? Adrian On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 3:20 AM, Merryl Wells via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: > I've spent about half an hour trying to work out how you can 'search' for a > particular person - think you have to know their (approximate?) date of > birth? It does not give full names, just initials, so rather a guessing > game if you are looking for a common surname. > > From > Merryl Wells of Luton, Beds. > E-Mail: merryl.wells@one-name.org > GOONS Mem. No. 1757 Reg. ONS: Bawtree; Gullick/ock, Moist/Moyst. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ann McDonald via" <goons@rootsweb.com> > To: <goons@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 11:16 PM > Subject: [G] Index of Records held by the Ministry of Defence > > >> The Ministry of Defence (UK) has released indices of records held for >> personnel born before 1901. These give (post WWI) service numbers, >> name, initials, date of birth and sometimes the unit. The records can >> be accessed from: >> >> https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi-responses-released-by-mod-week-commencing-1-december-2014 >> >> An explanation of the release is given in the eight item down which is >> then followed by eight attachments giving the data. >> >> Records for men and women who served during the Great War and then >> remained in the army after war should be included. >> >> Ann McDonald >> Corner ONS >> _____________________________________________ >> >> RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc >> http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >> in the subject and the body of the message > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message