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Photograph of officers of the Herts Militia, 4th Beds Regt, 1895 (Catalogue reference: COPY 1/420/901)

This is a brief guide to researching for records of a person who served in a militia. These records are varied though sometimes complicated. Many are available at The National Archives, but local archives also have significant holdings.

  • What do I need to know before I start?

    • Try to find out:

      • the name and rank of the person
      • the name of the regiment the person served in (where applicable)
      • a date range and a geographic location to help focus the search

  • What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?

    • Officers: records of service (1759-1925)

      Browse WO 68 and WO 76 for an officer's service record in the militia. You will need to know the relevant regiment to search these records.

    • Officers: records of commissions (1758-1874)

      Use the advanced search option in our catalogue to search within the following catalogue references:

      • HO 50 (1782-1840) - search using either militia AND commissions as keywords or using the name of a county, city or town
      • HO 51 (1758-1855) - search using militia AND commissions OR warrants as keywords

       

      Consult WO 43/1059 for officers' commissions 1780-1874.

    • Registers of officers (1816-1824)

      Use the advanced search option in the catalogue to search for registers of officers, arranged by regiment, within WO 25, using militia as your search term.

    • Officers and other ranks: militia muster rolls and pay lists (1780-1878)

      Browse the muster rolls and pay lists in WO 13 for records of officers and ordinary militiamen or search the same series of records by county or regiment in our catalogue.

    • Other ranks: militia muster rolls (1522-1649)

      Search Discovery, our catalogue, using the keywords 'muster roll'. Use the options on the left of the results page to narrow down your results.

      For 1522, muster rolls list:

      • landowners and the value of their lands
      • all males over 16 and the value of their goods
      • some also give occupations and the names of lords of the manor

      From 1523, muster rolls do not provide information on landowners and list only:

      • names of local inhabitants who were liable to military service
      • equipment they were required to have

      From 1570, most muster rolls list:

      • numbers of men but not their names unless they were in the 'trained bands' - those men selected for special training

      Muster rolls for this period do not represent a complete census of the male population. In fact it has been estimated that they omit about a third of the names they should contain.

  • What records can I find in other archives and organisations?

    • Militia lists (1758-1831)

      Look for militia lists in local and county record offices, archives of local newspapers, local poor law records, county historical society journals and websites.

      Each year, every parish in England and Wales was supposed to draw up lists of adult males, and to hold a ballot to choose those who had to serve in the Militia. The militia lists (of all men) and the militia enrolment lists (of men chosen to serve) should in theory provide complete and annual censuses of all men aged between 18 and 45 from 1758 to 1831.

      Militia lists give details of individual men and their family circumstances. However, the coverage of the country, for various reasons, is not complete. For more information see JSW Gibson and M Medlycott's book, listed below in Books.

    • Records held locally

      Search the Access to Archives (A2A) and National Register of Archives (NRA) databases to find records held in local archives.

  • The National Archives is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Related guides

Did you know?

The Militia was a part-time voluntary force. It was organised by county and existed mainly to help defend Britain and Ireland.

Modern militias were created by the Militia Act of 1757 and have been through many changes since. They were absorbed into the Territorial Army in 1908.

Some regular army records also include militia records or references to officers serving in militias, and are worth checking when looking for a person.

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