The person is the subject. The war is the context.
Their War is a UK family and military-history research project built to help families identify a relative, connect civilian life with military service, and preserve the resulting story with evidence attached.
It is currently in a deliberately narrow Beta V1. The beta is limited to British/Commonwealth First World War personnel who died while serving and can be anchored to strong casualty or commemoration evidence. Survivor and unknown-outcome research remains part of the longer-term vision, but it is deferred until this strongest-record route has been proven with real cases.
How it works
- Tell us what you know.For Beta V1, start with a First World War person who died while serving. A service number, regiment, home town, death date, cemetery or memorial can make the search much stronger.
- Find the casualty.Their War starts with casualty, commemoration and military evidence, then constructs credible whole-person candidates. Thin index hits and obvious conflicts can remain research leads without being presented as people to choose.
- Confirm or abstain.The system does not silently decide that a namesake is the right person. The supporting clues and doubts are shown, and the case proceeds only when the identity is strong enough to confirm.
- Research goes deeper.After confirmation, deeper research verifies and expands individual facts using archival, genealogical, military and historical sources.
- Preserve the story.The final aim is a readable family story whose factual claims remain traceable to the evidence and whose uncertainties remain visible.
Evidence, not false certainty
Historical records are incomplete. Names repeat, records can disagree, service files may be missing, and family memories can contain both valuable clues and understandable errors. Their War therefore distinguishes between family-supplied knowledge, documentary evidence, inference and general historical context.
Record richness alone is not treated as identity evidence. A famous or heavily documented namesake should not outrank a sparse candidate simply because more material survives online.
Sources and third parties
Their War may use public and permitted sources such as archive catalogues, official notices, memorial databases, local history resources and general web research. Third-party records remain subject to their own copyright, access and reuse conditions. A catalogue reference is not represented as though the underlying record has been examined when it has not.