Soldiers of the First World War - CEF

Hi back again. First of all thank you for making it easier to get to a web site by adding the ability to just click on the rather long web addresses and being taken to that web site instead of having to one finger type to enter the LONG web address. Feel I should explain that I am an elderly senior. I am not computer literate but I am tenacious. I want to pass on my family's soldier's records to my family. Due to age my time is starting to run out. I took the advice that you found for me, tried the web address and once again it took me right back to where I always land! So once Easter is over I will use the phone numbers you have provided. I keep wondering if the folks who are working on the momin team ever try out the web addresses that are being recommended. If not and clients are being sent round and round in circles it serves to make those folks angry and mad at the team. It must hurt to get such critiques. Thank you for giving me phone numbers to phone. I will try phoning and if that results in success or not I will make an attempt to inform folks of what I found if that's what people would like.

Until I came upon this page that allows users to comment on what they found out while trying to find information on their relative's World War 1 records I felt I must be computer dense and the only one having this problem. No matter what I tried everything kept bringing me back to a page that recorded my relative's attestation papers. I had already been there many times and I was unable to get any further. Twice I one fingered typed the extremely long web address that you recommend to so many and back I came to that same page that I always end up on. I hope this doesn't get edited as the last email did but has anyone on the team tried the web site that you provide? If someone on the team has tried that web site did it take you to a soldier's CEF personal records? That's what I'm trying to find. If someone on your team was successful finding those personal records can you lead me step by step so that I can be successful? Sometimes I came upon pages with pages of paragraphs that list records held by LAC (I think) that had promising titles that encouraged me to click on that info only to find I couldn't follow what was being said. It just wasn't user friendly. If I was insensitive to the momin team in my last email I apologize but it's because I was so frustrated. That extremely long web address should probably be left out of advice as a way to help user such as me. Can you try out that web site and if you succeed could you tell others like me how you reached a soldier's CEF personal records and if you are not successful can you come up with something else that might work? Hope this comment won't get edited. Thanks, Bernice.

This web site just takes you round and round. A complete waste of my time.

Tomorrow Apr.9th, 2017 is the 100th Anniversary of Vimy Ridge. After many attempts today and many other days and an extensive background in genealogy I have failed to win the battle of finding my gr. uncle's World War 1 personal records. Very discouraged trying to navigate this site.

Unbelievable !!! Unable to find any information on this site or any of the links provided in the comments. The oldest comment listed is from 2014 so that is 3 years of complaints from the public, with no corrections to the site. Whom ever is making the responses to the comments of the people should be ashamed to post anything, because it is of no help and they are doing nothing to correct the problem.

It took me forever to find the link to the WW1 attestation papers, and then I found the search didn't work. This site is terribly designed for the general public.
And this comment above from 2014 gives the whole attitude of customer service and why this website is so horribly laid out: "Comments left in this section should be regarding the "dataset" for the Soldiers of the First World War. For comments about the "database" of the Soldiers of the First World War" Yeah right, everyone understands that for sure. I think the same folks designed this as designed the Phoenix software.

On a scale of 1 to 10 this site is a zero minus 10.After 3 hours of frustration I have finally given up.The average computer user could not possibly find anything in this totally useless data base . Please restore the original search base which was user friendly .And no I am not a robot

I too am frustrated at the inability to retrieve personnel files with all of the info requested being entered. I have amassed several online originals from separate sites but the personnel card is critical to my ability to retrace my Great Uncles journey through France and to his place of death. We need this to be simplified, please!

What a wonderful site this used to be however it is now worthless.A pity no one ever was aware of if it works don't fix it.

I am very upset I spent 3 hours trying to find my great great grandfathers regiment and the 100 letters is not even working well I hope this gets fixed as I am a student and have a project to do that is due soon so I hope this issue is resolved soon as my teacher recommended this site. The ww1 section needs to have more information on it and my ancestors too.

juste avoir les informations sur son dossier!
je veux connaitre les renseignements sur mon grand père qui a participé à la 1ére guerre mondiale, mort suite à une maladie. et sa femme est vivante

How do we search WWII and or Korea

I have recently begun parsing the list and realized a few things:

* The list seems to contain about 575 000 items, not 600 000+. Is this normal?
* Why isn't there a common format for the dates? There are more than a dozen formats, including bogus data
* The attributes for records are not grouped together under an XML node; they're all in the root node.
* The file is encoded as UTF-16, needlessly doubling its size.

I'm especially concerned about the dates. Is there a way to obtain valid dates in a normalized format?

In any case, thank you for your precious work.

What is wrong here? It used to be a simple thing, enter a WWI soldier's name or regimental number and search. What happened? Were millions of tax dollars spent to "improve" things? Keep it simple and make an easy to find searh page and put a link to it at the bottom of every page. Now I seem to be in endless loops finding none of the inform that was easy to find before.

After an hour, yes I spent this much time, and am still no further ahead in my search. Why the problem?

I'd rate this a 5 if it was more up to date. I see the individual soldier records have a great deal more info on them now (rank etc.), and that info is not included in this dump. Otherwise, this is a great resource for people looking to *programmatically* work with the data.

bonjour je suis a la recherche d'un dossier dans les archives des anciens combattants algeriens de la premiere guerre mondiale 1939-1945 de monsieur bekhiche mohamed né en 1918 qui as participer dans la derniere guerre situé en haut sous les ordres de l'armé francais cette personne a perdu son livret de service militaire .
dans l'attente d'une reponse de votre part , veuilez agreer Mr Mme mes sinceres salutations

According to this site, my Grandfather never existed or fought for Canada. He did on the old site. What a joke this site is. Shame!

When i use the link you continually give to people, it asks us to sign in.

Like Megan at the top says, I'm going around and around in circles trying to get a Service Record of a WWI soldier. I cannot figure it out and see no clear way to get this information despite a paragraph saying most of this stuff is digitized and available online. Where?!

je veux connaitre les renseignements sur mon grand père qui a participé à la 1ére guerre mondiale, mort juste après la guerre suite à une maladie, d'après les dires de ses compagnons de l'époque, meme mon père ne sait pas ou il es enterré.

jl est mort on a perdu ses dociées

I found some information yesterday about an uncle of mine who served in both wars ,and was try again with out any luck. I woul have to rate your web site as a zero. Please fix it.

No idea why everyone is so down on this. It's a FABULOUS thing to be able to grab the entire dataset.
Thank you LAC!
If I could offer one bit of feedback though:
This XML file is stored as a UTF-16 file and is aver 700MB in size. Saving it as a UTF-8 file literally halves the file size. I converted it to UTF-8 using this (on Linux):
iconv -f utf-16 -t utf-8 001042_20141124.xml > 001042_20141124_UTF8.xml

Trust the Government to take what was good only to completely screw it up. I think that you are under pressure from the likes of "Ancestry' who wants to charge for information that should be free. My father did not endure the muddy trenches in France during the first war so you could charge to get any info about him about his service. I'll bet this note doesn't even show up on this site. I didn't know him very well ... he was 60 years old when I was born in 1941.

This is presently nearly unworkable because the links keep a person going in circles. The search box for a name should be much easier to find. Had to go to the comments letters to find it.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it". You took a perfectly good site and search engine and turned it into a monumental mess. It's so bad it's not even worth trying to use. Thanks so much for making needed and useful information unavailable. Our tax dollars wasted.

Where do I put in the name and find out if they are in the WW1 list? Can't find where to input. I don't remember it being this confusing when I used this site several years ago.

Tottally agree have used this in the past why would you not have someone who is not a chip head go through the steps before you change things you could have at least made it go to the webpage your suggesting by tapping on the link but you couldn't even make that simple process a possibility

Just wasted over an hour trying to access the database and going around in circles. Very disappointed.

I am trying to find out where my grandfather served after he joined the Canadian Army in World War 1. The information on the website is sending me around in circles. My grandfather was called Isaac Beal and he was born in Hamsterley, Count Durham, England 1878/9. Any information regarding his enlistment and service record would be helpful. I would be grateful if you could point me in the right direction.

What is completely unacceptable here is the disrespect to the commenters above. Responding with the same drone link statement to each complainant is unacceptable. Realize that these are the people who care and support LAC. Talk to them like humans.

All you can get to is Attestation Papers nothing else not even a form to request more information on a soldier!!!!
What kind of backward thinking is this?

What is wrong with our records system that it has all be sold out to private firms such as Ancestry!! We are forced to goto high priced companies in order to access information that should be free to the residents of Canada!!! I cannot even find the proper form to order copies of a family members service records who was killed in France in 1916. Cant even find the circumstances of his death!!! The old system was soooooo easy to use!! This one you just go round in circles. AND don't tell me to go to this site or that site of the LAC. Because you just go in circles. When I needed information on my fathers military record all I had to do was fill out a form with all the pertinent information. Checked the box that it was for family history and it was sent to me free of charge. Now its such a burden to find any thing that you give up. And I cant afford to belong to the family ancestry sites due to there exorbitant prices. I'm a pensioner and cannot afford such a luxury.

What is wrong with our records system that it has all be sold out to private firms such as Ancestry!! We are forced to goto high priced companies in order to access information that should be FREE to the residents of Canada!!! I cannot even find the proper form to order copies of a family members service records who was killed in France in 1916. Cant even find the circumstances of his death!!! The old system was soooooo easy to use!! This one you just go round in circles. AND don't tell me to go to this site or that site of the LAC. Because you just go in circles. This is just another example of not knowing what you people at the LAC not knowing what you are doing.

The updated (2014-11-24) dataset is now validating correctly. However, there are still a couple of minor issues. 1) The Data Dictionary is out of date and not consistent with the dataset. 2) The information is no longer grouped in records. Data from person 1 is next to person 2 is next to person 400, etc. This can be worked around, but it is a bit ambiguous.

Can't rate cause there is no zero!!!

What has happened to your "search" feature???? I used to be able to access it easily and now every time I try to research a general topic such as "#3 Canadian General Hospital" or specifically by a LAC Reference # which I actually have, I get only error messages! Surely there is SOMEWHERE to easily put in the LAC Reference # and come up with the specific file? And I'm NOT mad at the Archives because I know that the Harper government has stripped you of funding so I know you're doing your very best.

You have posted the following link several times as the link to search the war records for ww1 soldiers .... it does not work it takes you right back to this page or to a yahoo search engine ...go back to the old system that you could punch in a name and do a search and get results...this system leads to nothing but frustration for many many, would be users
www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx

You have posted the following link several times as the link to search the war records for ww1 soldiers .... it does not work it takes you right back to this page or to a yahoo search engine ...go back to the old system that you could punch in a name and do a search and get results...this system leads to nothing but frustration for many many, would be users
www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx

How can I comment on something I cannot see?

I just tried the "Download" for this: Dataset XML Bilingual (English and French) ... and came up with at BLANK page ... is that all there is to this dataset?

did laurel and hardy set this web page up [a nother fine mess] what is wrong with typing in the service number and getting the answer .its not rocket science

Please, please put the old site back up.

I agree with Meghan and the others, change it back. It was less confusing the last time I tried to access info.
Pls fix it.

Site navigation stinks! You don't need improvements: Just put it back the way it was!!!!

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war

After reading all the negative comments, I decided to try it myself. I clicked on the link above and went right to the search for my Grandfather. I found all his records from WWI, all 66 pages of them, and it was instant. No wait at all.

Like so many others who have submitted comments, I had been hoping to access information on behalf of a friend whose First Nations grandfather from Northern Manitoba served in WWI. He had discovered the medals after his mother recently passed away. Rather than enabling us to restore pride in his People and heritage through his grandfather's service, like so many other dealings between Aboriginal Peoples and the Federal Government, what we have instead discovered is a great electronic goose chase. Having earned a Master of both Public Administration and Education and being myself a former Assistant Deputy Minister and Senior Policy Advisor for the Province of Manitoba whose career included promoting joint federal provincial citizen centred service delivery enhancement initiatives, I therefore join my voice with those of my fellow Canadians and call for the restoration of what was formerly a user friendly interface that served to promote openness and transparency while serving, in those rare instances, to potentially afford citizens like my friend the opportunity to regain a sense of self and a sense of pride in who they are and where they have come from. It is so very unfortunate that these citizens' voices have been ignored in favorite of a form response. One which, I would add, contains a broken link that no longer functions. In a time where point of contact service standards are defined by the citizens ability to retrieve information in three interactions or less, navigating websites and following the trail of broken links only serves to reinforce apathy among, and disempowerment of the very electorate whose taxation revenues underwrite your operating grants and sustainability as a public organization. I write these comments and submit this feedback not expecting any response and in fact would likely be further insulted by any attempt to issue the same form response that others have already received. Therefore, my only interest is in the communication of a key message: that people need to be placed above policy and process and any public sector organization that fails to appreciate this truth will, in the longer term, find its operating sustainability in jeopardy as those who would have come to voice support for your organization and operations in tough fiscal contexts and times of reduction will have had no personal stake or interest that would lead them to defend or promote that myriad of form responses and labyrinth of broken weblinks. PS, http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/... (link abbreviated for efficiency) is now broken.... However http://www.iccs-isac.org is fully functional and offers incredible perspectives on how to streamline processes and points of contact between government and its citizens.

what are you doing at the Archives? This is a chore of frustration. I am searching the site for WW1 soldier and it is now one hour and forty-seven minutes and all I've managed is to go around and and around in circles. What is our money going towards? This is supposed to help generations find our forefathers. By the time I find them I'll be one of them. This is terrible waste of our money. If I worked like this I'd be fired.

I was excited to think I might be able to find out what my grandfather did in the First World war as he went from Orkney to Canada to work and while there joined the CEF but I can't get anywhere with this website, other than accessing the Attestation Paper which I already have. Can anybody tell me of any website that is more user friendly please.

I agree, this is absolutely the worst revamp of a database. On the old system I found the attestation papers of my great uncle who served in the Navy in WW1, now he's not even listed in the records! I have a photo of him and other information, but now with your "improvements" these online records are lost! What a waste of taxpayer money. And yes, I did go to the links you mention every time you respond. He is not there.

What a complete waste of time trying to find soldiers of the First World War! It was so much easier before.

This is the least user friendly site I have been on in the last decade. It is now badly broken.

You obviously have a lot of people who have nothing to do but play around on the taxpayer's dollar. To say the new approach is a mess is a gross under statement. The new system is so unfriendly that it could have only approved by the LAC the location of a number of other horrors of how to access material. You are clearly out to torpedo the research efforts of the public

I wasn't aware of this site previous to improvements, but honestly this site sucks, simply a redirect..

to paraphrase.......Never before in the history of human conflict has so much been screwed up by so few.
Once you could put a name in and immediately find a file.
Now I get this: QueryRecords: Cannot logon with credentials obtained from Secure Store Provider.
Sorry,but I can't be the one person commenting saying what a great job you have done.Unbelievable how you took something that worked perfectly well and then turned it into an utter disaster.Sad,sad,sad.

Sorry...cannot find anything on this website. Very frustrating. Was so hopeful when I heard of all the hard work that was being done to digitize war records. I can't find the records for WW1 attestation papers....and yes I've used the link you've suggested 100 times. It just brings you back as to HOW to do it, not the actual database. I'll come back in a few months and hope that it will be changed so it's easier to navigate. All that hard work and no once can find anything....truly heartbreaking.

typical government website. after punching in all the characters that i was led to beleive would take me to a magical place that you might be able to find someones name i was not surprised to end up at the exact same confusing website.wow. i have lost respect for the people that do this kind of work. good thing its a govt. job

You have changed everything including finding files for NWMP and now nothing makes sense!!! typical government - lets start over and have a user friendly website.

This is just another wasteful blunder by overpaid people that think they know how to fix things this site is totally useless -frustrating and who ever put it together should go to the shame house at the back of the line --totally crap!

how long does it take for you to fix this shitty site.never Never mind telling us were to go just but it back.....

I prefer the old system. It was much easier to navigate and far less frustrating. I see from the numerous comments that I am not alone and am wondering how much feedback is needed to effect a change?

I Have my Grandfathers Attestation Papers, and now I am looking for his service files. After numerous hours and much patience, I am told His name is not on file. This is a last ditch effort to learn something about my Grandfather and his service. This site is the most user unfriendly site I've ever used!!!!

The Beaton Institute at Cape Breton University just released an image of the 1917 Cadet Corp from the Sydney Academy (Corp. #306). Is there a sub-set of the national defense archives that would contain cadet images? Maybe, with attribution information?

Your link brings one back to this same page. Please make this page user friendly. It should have terms that are understandable to all and links that actually work.

This was so hard to access. Trying to find a document was like going around in circles. One thing would take me to another page, and I could never actually find the documents that the website said were there.

I have tried to download the dataset using the link on the "http://data.gc.ca/data/en/dataset/6a6e6a79-9e2a-48cc-99ec-163da26d15e9" page. The link tries to open "http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/900/f11/001042_20140606.xml"

With Firefox, this results in the following error "XML Parsing Error: not well-formed Location:http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/900/f11/001042_20140606.xml Line Number 16, Column 58:<front>http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=200733a&op=img&app=cef</front>". With Chrome no particular error is given but the page is "unresponsive" and will not load.

Please fix the link.

My father's Uncle signed up on June 4, 1917 at the age of 29. He died in 1926. I have tried going through the suggested website but cannot find any discharge information. Can you direct me to some other site? Thanks.

The XML here is not valid; URIs are listed with unescaped ampersands. They should be &amp; in XML, not just plain &.

Also, I don't know what that Data Dictionary is supposed to be. The type is XML, but it appears to be some sort of Word document that doesn't open.

I don't know if this is the right site to ask this but here goes.i HAVE A PICTURE OF 39 SOLDERS ,ONE WHO IS MY GREAT UNCLE.IT WAS LEFT TO ME WHEN MY DAD PASSED AWAY SOME TIME AGO.along with it there is a like copper enlarged penny .written on it is my uncle's name william richard batten and the words he died for freedom and honour.The overseas battalion is 96th camp hughes.the no. looks like 1916-1918.iT IS TRULY a good picture of the solders after all this time.maybe one of these fine men is some one you are looking for.--annabeth

Please keep posting the link to the search feature! At least that gave me the tools to find what I needed.

I wanted to find a soldier's Service File so I went to the link at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/...
This took me to a search page titled Search: Service Files of the First World War, 1914-1918 – CEF. According to the title, this should be the search page for service files; however, there are NO SERVICE FILES here. Someone has incorrectly connected the search engine on this page that should be for SERVICE FILES to ATTESTATION PAPERS instead. Library staff need not reply with comments about database and dataset because that is not going to help anything. Nothing is going to help until someone connects the search engine to the right data.

Just like many computer companies catering to the super genius techies

I am trying to download the data set as I want to do some research around the 1914 volunteers. Can I? Of course not. What I am getting is the following error message "This page contains the following errors: error on line 16 at column 58: EntityRef: expecting ';' Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error." and then it gives me a portion of a line of soldier name staring Aa
The minister was criticized for saying that LAC and Stats Canada weren't going to do much for little old ladies (aka genealogists) in Kingston. It is increasingly apparent LAC doesn't give a hoot about any clients - whether genealogists or historians. All LAC management want to do is sign nice little deals with a US company who we all know - so that living breathing bodies will go away and stop asking for real service.

Lots of great introductions explaining what can be found on this site, but just try finding it! I thought it was just me but it seems I'm not alone in being disappointed with this site. Can't even find the material that I found several months back. I hope action will be taken soon to fix the problem.

Like so many things in Government if it " WORKS FIX IT". This the first time in a long time I have been on the sight what a mess.

I'm going in circle.
Very disapointed.
Was easy a couple years ago.
Bureaucrats ugh...............

I, like so many others, have spent endless time trying to get to grips with your site in the interests of obtaining the Personal Service File of CURRIE, James, 42800, 13th Bn Quebec Regiment who was Killed in the Field at St. Julien in the course of Second Battle of Ypres. I have today ordered his personal file but, and it is a big BUT I am left wondering whether I have to pay or not as even in this respect the site is confusing. One is given the impression that armed with the necessary personal details plus the appropriate Reference number and Box Number it is possible to view the details on-line. I finally decided that this was NOT the case and decided to request a digital copy and then found I was drawn into ordering also a textual copy. Undeterred I soldiered on (pardon the pun) and proceeded to order only to find that I was confronted with fields relating to Canadian provinces which required completion and, in turn, contrasted with the fields I was required to complete given that I am resident in the United Kingdom. To cut a long story short, I have today received confirmation of my order, but am no wiser as to whether I will have to pay for textural material which will come to me through the post for payment and/or whether the Personal Service File will be sent to me via e-mail and free of charge. There are serious difficulties with your site that need to be addressed without further delay. Meantime, I await the Personal Service File of Private James Currie, Service number: 42800. 13th Battalion Quebec Regiment. Killed in the Field
St Julien 24th April, 1915.

Kind regards

Bob Currie

Same problem as others - link leads me to a page saying error no page! Have a look at Australia's War records and archives. Much easier. I got my grandfathers complete 23 page enlistment online free with a name search. Hoping to find Canadian relatives War records but very difficult.

When I right-click and download the XML version of the dataset, I am unable to open it as it says that the file is corrupt. When I just click on the link it gives the following error message:

XML Parsing Error: not well-formed
Location: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/900/f11/001042_20140606.xml
Line Number 16, Column 58: <front>http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=200733a&op=img&app=cef</front>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------^

I have tried this from my home PC, a mac latop, an i mac, my university office computer, my university laptop, and even a public computer at the library. Clearly it is not working and I have spoken to several colleagues who all have the same issue at different institutions.

The link you are providing us with doesn't work http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx

So It's just not us Brits who fowl up a perfectly good website. Don't keep posting a link which gets us nowhere.

What is the difference between "The Dataset" and "The Database"? I agree with the thousands of preceding comments that the old version of this website was simple to use and yielded results, whereas this site is the exact opposite.

this web page is a total waste of time ,I am sure it could be made more simple

Couldn't agree more. This site is useless and a mess. Very unfortunate it had to be tampered with. Obviously a make work project.

Round and round and round we go, from dataset (whatever the heck that is) to database, to deadend links, and back to dataset (still don't know what it is). So dizzy I think I am going to puke. You should just give all you data to Wikpedia and give up.

What a waste of time and money. Like many others, I've tried the website link that you folks keep recommending but it tells me absolutely nothing. Whatever happened to keeping things simple i.e. typing in a person's name and regiment number to get the information one is looking for? I'm trying to find my uncle's military record from WW1 but this new system is like pulling teeth from a chicken. At the very least to avoid all this frustration, bring back the old system until you've worked the kinks out this fiasco.

If you read the comments you can see a common problem. Don't try to defend yourself, just fix the problem.

I'm sorry to say that your site is useless .

Looking for my late grandpa picture n wer is he buried I don't know what he looks like n never seen him before I am his great great grandson I love to see his picture n been looking for him all these years

Find it impossible to navigate the Archive changes .. the old system was clear and easy to access. I did find a record of my father's enlistment, but where have the alphabetical list of photos gone??

This website is impossible to use. Wanting information on great-grandpa and great-great uncle but unable to find much. It should be much easier that this The dataset does not even work.

What genius set up this disaster? Must have been a job to make it so hard to find information! Worst site ever, FAIL!!!

i think this site needs a whole lot of work. it is very complicated and confusing. i still don't know how to find the information i want and i am no dummy.

This site is terrible!!! How much money went into creating this mouse trap? What a waste of time. What an awful web design! Please reinstate the old site.

Incredibly frustrated, like the others. At one time, I was able to see the page where my grandfather was mentioned at Vimy Ridge at this web-site http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-119.02-e.php?image_url=http://data2.archives.ca/cef/gpc010/490448a.gi... Now, it's a dead link and I cannot, simply cannot, find that Vimy Ridge page. If it wasn't broken, why have our tax dollars gone to this "revamp"?

In the past, the Library and Archives site was well designed and easy to use... Somebody made the error of modifying things and as usual, the people who designed the previous search sites who likely employed by the government were either retired away or, they were fired. So somebody hired a private firm to create this mess and some genius who obviously has no clue how to create a user friendly site was put in charge... This frustrates researchers and genealogist. Would somebody in the government please rectify this mistake.

How do I find my Grandfathers regiment and regimental Number from the first world war

Yikes!!! What a mess, cannot find anything.
The old site was easier to use and so much quicker. I have been going around and around and around, I am sure you get the picture!!!

I have tried the link you are giving to everybody trying to get information on WW1 soldier military records. It does not work. I agree with everyone else this is a real mess. I copied and pasted the link which you had provided and got a message that it did not exist. Is there not a simple method of accessing these files. Please send me some new info on how to get access to these files - the message you are giving is not working for the public trying to obtain information.

Thanks for the link, omit the end elipsis next time though please! I can find my grandfather's atestation papers, which I have from a commercial site, and so I assume that his file has not yet been digitised, and I will need to check in now and then for the whole file. Regards, Sue in NZ

Quite right everybody. I can't find the stuff that used to be so simple to find here either. LAC has done this before - take away stuff that works and is findable in the name of making things better. And unless we scream really loud the bright lights running the show at LAC will just keep on giving mediocre service. But this is just so typical of how Library and Archives Canada has been managed for the last number of years.

Totally agree that this is a mess compared to previous availability.

I would like to add my name to the list of people here. The old interface was not broken. Why did you 'fix' it? It was much easier to use, and much faster to find where to look for soldiers. Can we have it back please??

Why do people fix things that aren't broken. This site is the absolute worst ever

Hi,
Your bac-lac ..... link does not work at all,
I always get a message THIS PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED.

Is there a problem?

Thanks

Hi all. Although I know about this subject I keep ending up on this page rather than the database for the Soldiers of the First World War. Perhaps this should be under notes to users rather than where it is. Perhaps that might help eliminate all the negative comments. This should be some sort of priority for LAC given all the hard work that is going on at the moment to digitize all these files to commemorate the anniversary of WW1.

I opened a new window and copied the link that was given in a previous message:
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx...
It worked just fine! Found my Great Grandfather!

I've followed every link suggested and am nowhere. I know the files on my relatives are available, just a horribly, poorly designed site. The authors of this should be fired!!

“REALLY “ What has happen to this database? Even if you had planed to make this database confusing , you couldn't have made it any harder to use. What a waste of my time.

Can't you people leave anything alone that works? I always could find information about my relatives who served in both world wars . But now I can't because some genius thinks they have a better idea, well they don't . they whoever they are have made a mess of a great working site that was easy to access. I have tried and tried to access the world war one records site but can't anymore . Thank's for screwing up the great previous site.Whoever you are.

The online search used to be so simple and user friendly. I can't even find out where to search for attestation papers now. Whoever vandalized this service should be fired!

get a high school student to fix this mess, at least they know how to work web sites

worse site ever, never did open up

Like all the others who have left comments - this site is the pits!! Why does our government have to make things so hard to use??? What's wrong with a search box to enter a name? Where is the old site? Surely you didn't destroy it when you put this monstrosity online! Just go to the cache and bring back the proper version.... there are so many of us out here who pay our taxes on time and expect to be able to use this site whenever we need it. I for one am researching a book and the valuable information you hold is now no longer available to me. I tried using the "new" digitized version of the attestation papers and could only find a portion of what I used to find. You have destroyed a perfectly good working site! I hope you are all happy about that!

This is the worst site to even try to navigate. the database for Soldiers of the Frist World War WAS very easy to locate and use. Just like to government. Easy to use, but hey, lets fix it, so no one can use it. I am not even going to attempt to navigate this!! Change it back to the user friendly verson!!

very confusing,,, i want to find out my grand dads info and keep going in circles.. i have his attestation papers,, now i want any other info that may be on here.. how do you find it????????? I am very computer literate, but find this site ridiculously confusing.

Round and round in circles, with no result.

This site is a real mess. Only documentation I was able to find was my grandfathers Attestation Paper, which I already had. I am trying to find his actual service records for my Aunt (his daughter) as my father died back in 1976. We want to find my grandfather's actual service record - what he did, where he was stationed, etc

totally a waste of time, what a mess compared to the old site!

Soldiers of the First World War database:
It was a good information site. Wish it was available again.

The only place some info could be found.

Where is everything.

There is no question that the revised website is TERRIBLE. What once was easy to find is now impossible t find. You have created a steam-powered mousetrap. Please restore the former format.

As stated by many others, you guys fixed something that really did not need fixing. You should reinstate the older version of the site. As it stands it takes forever to find something if you can even find it.

How many degrees does one need to find service files? It should be as easy as putting in name and regimental number! Just like our government to make something worthwhile too difficult to navigate, therefore rendering it useless to the average taxpayer.

Money wasted fixing what didn't need fixing!

But now it does need fixing: "Regiment Number"?! Is that supposed to be "Regimental Number" or the number of the formation the soldier served in?

How could this new page get to the point of publication with such an obvious and elementary mistake!?

where is everything? what a mess!!

To search Soldiers of the First World War database, please try these 2 links:

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/canadian-expediti...

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/search.aspx

Change the site back to what it was. Your people have made a mess of something that was fast and easy to use.

Right. I'm with Meagan. Not going to waste my time though.

Once upon a time a person was able to search the Soldiers of the First Wold War Database with little issue. I have now spend 20minutes following links in circles and still cannot find the database...can you please fix this, or make it even vaguely user friendly?