Exhibitions

1. Ask your relatives to tell you all the stories they’ve heard on your Royal Marine relative. This is usually one of the best sources of information and a good place to start your search for information.

2. Go through old photo albums, your attic, garage or anywhere where family memorabilia is kept to see what items you can find on your Royal Marine relative.

3. Check the census returns to see if a member of your family put Royal Marine as an ‘occupation’

4. Having a service record is the next step. If the person you’re researching joined before 1928, the service record can be found at the National Archive at Kew .

5. To obtain service records from after 1928 a next of kin can contact the Department of Navy Personnel to request it.

6. Once you’ve got hold of the service record visit the Royal Marines Museum’s website at www.royalmarinesmuseum.co.uk and download the unit history and abbreviations documents which can be found the ‘Marine’ and ‘Research and Collections’ page.

7. Use the downloaded documents to interpret and understand the content of the service record. A lot of information is available from the service record alone.

8. Once you’ve found out all you can from the service record, visit the Royal Marines Museum to find out more about Royal Marines from 1664 up until current day.

9. If you have a specific question come along to our Meet the Curators day on Sunday 19^th February

10. If you’ve completed all the other steps and have a question that’s gone unanswered you can email our Curatorial department via the website at www.royalmarinesmuseum.co.uk