Number of a soldier.
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Somewhere someone recommended the website "lives of the first world war" as a tool to find the correct name of a soldier mentioned in the diaries. Using that website I found that the regimental numbers in that website don't always match with the regimental numbers mentioned in the war diary. For example 959 became 595 and 6997 became 6977. I suppose that those in the diary are the correct one's?
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by
ral104
moderator, scientist
Definitely not 😃
It's more likely that the author of the diary has just made an error. If you find the correct service number on Lives, then I would use that one - they're taken from the official records.
That said, only do that if you're certain you have the right person. In the examples you give, it seems fairly certain the diary author has just got the numbers in the wrong order. But if the number varies more significantly, it's probably best to go with what's in the diary.
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David_Underdown
moderator
There are probably errors in both sources to be honest - the underlying record is probably OK in Lives, but it may be mistranscribed. Of course those writing the war diaries could be in quite difficult circumstances, and number transpositions like those you've highlighted are very easy to make.
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Meanwhile, I found the presumably correct service number (the one mentioned on Lives) of one of the soldiers in an attached report
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ral104
moderator, scientist
Great! At least we know which one is likely to be correct now.
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