How to look for records of... Home Guard personnel

This is a brief guide to researching British army and government records for a person who served in the Home Guard, also known as the Local Defence Volunteers. Some personal service histories are available at The National Archives, but you can also find operational records such as those relating to regimental histories and awards of medals.

Durham Home Guard service papers are available online, see below.

Service histories of members of the Home Guard other than Durham will be available online in March 2028.

The Home Guard was originally formed as the Local Defence Volunteers in 1940 and was responsible for guarding coastal areas and factories from invasion. It was disbanded in 1945.

The Home Guard was organised by region and enrolment forms for the County of Durham have been transferred to The National Archives as a pilot project and are available through our catalogue, Discovery, see below.

Enrolment records for the remainder of England and Wales have been transferred to The National Archives as part of the Ministry of Defence service records project and will be made available through a licensed partnership with Ancestry. It is expected they will be accessible online by March 2028.

Most of the records consist only of a single page enrolment form, like the example.

When a person joined the Home Guard they were asked a series of questions. Their answers were then recorded on the enrolment form.

The records contain the following basic information:

• first and last name
• date and place of birth
• address
• brief details of former military service on the reverse side

Some of the records also include applications for medals, medical forms and general correspondence. The medical forms are closed until 2045 for data protection reasons.

Search by name and download enrolment forms of Durham Home Guard personnel from Discovery, our catalogue. These records cover the county of Durham only.If you search for a record and find it is closed, you will see an online form that you can complete to request a review. You will need to pay a search fee and provide evidence that the person who served in the Durham Home Guard is no longer living.

For papers relating to the rest of the Home Guard see the section below.

Personnel records of Home Guard units for the remainder of England and Wales have been transferred to The National Archives from the Ministry of Defence as part of the Ministry of Defence service records project. They cannot be searched for or downloaded from our catalogue. It is expected that they will be accessible through Ancestry in March 2028. If you are unable to wait until March 2028 you can request a paid search using the application forms below.Please only proceed if you are unable to wait until March 2028. Due to the high volume of Home Guard records, with over four million transferred to The National Archives, and the storage method used for these records, it is unlikely that we will be able to locate the record of interest within a reasonable timeframe. It will help if you know the county and battalion. You will receive a quotation based on the estimated amount of time it will take to locate the record.

You can request a search for a military service record using one of the following two forms (charges apply):

Form 1: For a deceased person born before 1940

Form 2: For a living person, or your own record, born before 1940

Recommendations for military honours and awards, 1935–1990

Search our catalogue for recommendations for awards (£) such as the Victoria Cross and the Military Medal. This collection (WO 373) includes awards to some Home Guard personnel.

Home Office Committee on Civil Defence recommendations for gallantry awards, 1940-1949

Search Ancestry.co.uk (£) by name for papers submitted to the committee recommending Home Guard personnel for the George Cross, George Medal or Empire Gallantry Award.

Cabinet Papers

Read our research guide to Cabinet and its committees for advice on searching our catalogue for cabinet papers.

The archived Cabinet Papers site has themed pages which you can browse, some with links to downloadable documents.

Home Forces papers and regimental histories

Browse the records of the Home Forces in WO 199 for regimental histories, nominal rolls of Home Guard auxiliary units and other papers. The unit war diary for the Durham Second Battalion is in WO 199/3324.

Treasury Ceremonial Branch Civil Defence Awards Files, 1938-1950

Search the records in T 336 by name, most of the information in these files was published in the London Gazette but some files contain unpublished accounts of actions.

Recommendations for the award of the British Empire Medal, 1944

Consult AIR 2/9040 to find recommendations for the award of the British Empire Medal to some members of the Home Guard on stand-down.

Search our catalogue using keywords such as ‘Home Guard’. Your results will include records held by the National Archives and by 2,500 other archives across the UK.

Durham Light Infantry records, 1940s and 1950s

Search the online catalogue of Durham County Record Office to find records of the Durham Light Infantry. These include regulations, orders and instructions for the Durham Home Guard.

Various local records

The National Archives’ catalogue contains collections and contact details of local archives around the UK and beyond. To locate these records, search our catalogue with keywords and refine your results to ‘Other archives’ using the filters.

Visit The National Archives’ bookshop for a range of publications on the Home Guard. Alternatively, look in The National Archives’ library catalogue to see what is available to consult at Kew.Read William Spencer’s Army Records: A Guide for Family Historians (The National Archives, 2008).

Consult published Home Guard Lists, available at The National Archives library and other specialist libraries, to trace an officer in the Home Guard. These are arranged by area and include name indexes.