Family Historian User Group

Please can anyone tell me if there is anywhere I can search English National service records from 1956 until 1963?

For records after 1920 you can apply for them from the Government

https://www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-service-records

Jane, thank you for the link, turns out I cannot do that as I do not know the man's service number! I only have a birth certificate from 1940

Read it carefully - you do not need a Service Number to apply for Army Service papers from the MoD. The name and birth date suffices. (If those 2 duplicate.... well, cross that bridge when we come to it.)

Your bigger problem may be that without a death certificate, they will not give anything out. Even then, you will not get the full details until a number of years have passed since the death (ostensibly to protect the deceased's family) unless either you are the next of kin, or you have the permission of the next of kin to receive the full details.

Adrian, that’s very helpful thank you, I’ll go back and give it a try.

(If those 2 duplicate.... well, cross that bridge when we come to it.)

In my experience, if they're unsure that they're going to send you the right record they will make contact and ask for extra information to narrow things down.

In my case, this wasn't as straightforward as it might have been -- they asked me who his next of kin would have been, but the possible names I gave didn't match his record... In the end if came down to me knowing an address he might have given on demob.

When the record arrived, I did wonder if it wasn't so much that there were two candidates as that they did not want to send out the record of an absolute scoundrel if it was the wrong one. There were reasons (including desertion and bigamy) why I didn't know his next of kin.