About the First World War Index

The Archives of Manitoba has created an electronic index of Manitoba soldiers killed in the First World War. This index was generated from a series of index cards created by the Government of Manitoba for the purpose of documenting Manitoba casualties of the First World War. The original index was made during and after the war but was not a complete record. As a result, this electronic index is also not a complete list of Manitobans killed in the First World War. (It would appear that many of the names on the cards were gathered from newspaper casualty lists. Death dates are often the same as those in the newspapers, including the same errors. Some of the men identified as killed were not – and likely reflect errors in the newspaper lists.)

The original index is a set of 1092 index cards, with each card containing information on an individual soldier. The cards are handwritten and include name, rank, battalion, date of death, and may also include additional personal information such as community of residence and next of kin. Some have an obituary glued to them. The Archives does not have complete information about the creation or history of these cards. They were found in a sub-basement of the Manitoba Legislative Building and appear to have been assembled by the Department of Public Works for the purpose of creating an honour roll. Likely at least some of the information was submitted by family members.

This electronic index includes fields for the standard information that was collected on the cards. Like the original index, the electronic index is organized alphabetically by surname. The index is fully keyword searchable. When no information was collected on the card for a particular field, the field was left blank in the electronic index. When a card includes an obituary, this is indicated in the “Notes” column.

Search the index.

Search Keystone to find out more about these records (A 0156, Index cards identifying soldiers killed in World War I, GR8115).

Visit the Archives to see the original records.

Four examples of index cards are shown here:

Archives of Manitoba, A 0156, Index cards identifying soldiers killed in World War I, GR8115