Researching Canadian Soldiers Who Died in the Second World War

Cross of Sacrifice at Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

With the 75th anniversary commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe approaching I've been seeing a number of posts in various Facebook genealogy groups asking about how to research family members that served in that war. This post will focus on some of the key resources I use to find information about those Canadians that served and died during the Second World War.

As an aside, for records for those that survived the war you will need to visit the Library and Archives Canada page "Requests for Military Service Files". Be forewarned, there appears to be about a 14-18 month backlog in processing the requests. If the service member is still alive, make sure that they request their file right now. Once they pass away, for a period of 20 years, only limited personal information will be released to an immediate family member (spouse, parent, sibling, child or grandchild) of the individual concerned if proof of relationship and proof of death are provided.

My starting point for any of research of a Canadian that served and died in the military during the Second World War is the Second World War: 1939-1945 at Library and Archives Canada. From that page you can learn about what databases and records are available, read the research guides, and find other sources of possible information. You can also go to the Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947 to start your search.

When you search you can just put in the surname and given name(s) of the person. However, if you click on "Show Advanced Search Options" you can fill in additional details. I normally don't use the advanced search fields but for a common name it might help limit the number of entries returned.

Partial screen capture from a search for William Smith in the Library and Archives Canada database "Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947".

What you will hopefully see is a short list of results with their name, date of birth, date of death, service number, a an item number you can click on to see additional details and possibly download the service file. Most of the results won't have a PDF of the service file attached to them. In fact, only a very small number of the files have been digitized and placed on the Library and Archives Canada site. But don't fret for there are other ways of viewing the files. Keep in mind that the digitization efforts have focused on creating a "genealogy package". This is a selection of what has been determined to be the most relevant documents from the file which highlights the service including enlistment, units served with, family details, medal entitlements, and circumstances of death.

One of the easiest ways of view the files is through Ancestry in their Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947 collection. According to the Library and Archives Canada page you only need a free account and not a paid subscription to access this collection. Alternately, if you don't want to give Ancestry your e-mail address you can get access to the institution version of Ancestry at your local library or Family History Center (and affiliates).

Partial screen capture of the abstracted record for William Scott, service number K23205, in the Ancestry "Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947" collection.

When you do find the entry on Ancestry don't click on the "View" button. That will only bring you to the attestation paper. Instead, click on the "View File Start" since that will bring you to the start of the file folder. From there you can download to your computer the individual pages in the service file. Be forewarned, some of these files can get quite large but there are all kinds of interesting details in the files.

Now that you have the service file, what next?

Stop and take the time to read the file.

Then re-read that file.

And then once more read the file!

There are all kinds of nuggets of information in those files. Often I will go through the file five or six times and record the details into my own genealogy database. To help me decipher the abbreviations in the file I sometimes consult the "Military Abbreviations used in Service Files" page on the LAC web site.

Once that is done I usually head over to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site to search for the person there. If the name is relatively common you will probably want to filter by "Served with" and the "War". On that site you may find the pages from the Graves Registration Reports, Graves Concentration Reports, and what was written on the grave marker or memorial.

Next I head off to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial to see what they might have on their site. Yu might find an image of the grave marker or memorial, a link to the Second World War Book of Remembrance, and, since people can upload their own images, sometimes copies of newspaper articles or pictures of the person.

If there was a grave marker but I haven't found an image of it yet I will check Find A Grave to see if someone has uploaded the picture. That is how I first saw the marker for my Grand Uncle Ronald MacGregor Warrener who was buried in the Agira Canadian War Cemetery in Italy.

In the service file you may come across a "Field Service" report that details the cause of death and where the body was initially buried.

Canada, "Military Service Record: William Scott, Regimental Number K23205, RG 24, Volume 27004," Field Report; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Often this is a temporary burial but it usually fairly close to where the person died. Sometimes there is enough information in the burial location to find the place on Google Maps. For maps from the war I will often head over to the Digital Archive @ McMaster University Library Maps Collection and select the World War II (1939-1945) collection. However, most of those maps are from before the Invasion of Normandy on 6 Jun 1944. But sometimes I get lucky and find a map from after the invasion that has the details I am looking for.

If you are looking for the War Diaries from the Second World War of the unit they served in you might be fortunate enough to find them digitized on the LAC partner site Héritage. Visit the War Diaries, Ship Logs and Operations Record Books page for details about how to search for any diaries held by Library and Archives Canada.

Sample page of a War Diary for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, microfilm T-10530, Library and Archives Canada, http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t10530.

Keep in mind that these are not the diaries written by the person that served in the war but of the activities of the unit. However, there will be details about what was happening with the unit including where they may have run into the enemy.

Don't forget to do a Google search of the unit that they served in. There are books that have been written about the various units in the Second World War. For example, in the case of William Scott above, he was in the "65 Cdn A/Tk Bty 5 Cdn A/Tk Regt". This translates into "65th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery, 5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment". A search on the "5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment" yields a link to WorldCat where you can find the book "The History of the 5th Canadian Anti-tank Regiment : 10 Sept., 1941-10 June, 1945" about the regiment's role in the Second World War. There is even a book written about the battery William Scott was in called "The History of the 65th Canadian Anti-tank Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery : 9 September 1941- 20 September 1945".

If the regiment has a museum or an archivist, like the the 48th Highlanders of Canada which my Grand Uncle Ronald Warrener served in, then reach out to them to see what they might have in their files. I actually visited the museum of the 48th Highlanders of Canada on one of my trips to Toronto. They didn't have much on hand about Ronald but a few weeks later I received a package in the mail with a chapter describing the battle he was in and he was even mentioned by name. I returned the favour and sent what I had about Ronald back to them for their files.

Hopefully some of the sites and tips in this post will help you to learn more about those Canadians that served and died in the Second World War.