At the end of May Ancestry released a small number of records from Westminster related to the Militia covering 1779–1815 (ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/62276). This served as a reminder of how useful such records can be to family historians. They provide not only details of (male) individuals eligible for military service in specific localities (usually parishes) from periods when records are normally thin or nonexistent, but in some cases details of their wives and children as well.
Men were selected locally by ballot, usually by parish
For a large part of Britain's history its defence on land was the primary responsibility not of the Regular Army, but of the Militia: fully trained but only part-time soldiers who would be embodied – made temporarily full-time – in wartime. This tradition,
