Commonwealth War Graves Registers, First World War

• About the records
• Commonwealth War Graves Registers
• How the Records Are Arranged in the Volumes
• List of Content of Volumes

About the records

Library and Archives Canada holds records related to the death of service personnel from both the First and Second World War grouped into one series: Accession RG 150, 1992-93/314.

• Volumes 1 to 38 hold applications for the burial of ex-CEF personnel to be buried in Canada or the United States with a military marker supplied by the Government of Canada.
• Volumes 39 to 144 are known as the “Black Binders” and serve as a register of death and location of the body or memorial, serving primarily as a death certificate and register of burial for those serving in Belgium, France or the United Kingdom.
• Volumes 145 to 238 are known as the “Brown Binders” which focuses on the circumstances of death (if available) with particulars of the initial grave site, if known. These volumes have also been digitized and are available online.
• Volumes 239 to 274 are ledgers covering the death and burial of military service personnel in Canada and the United States during the First World War and afterwards.
• Volumes 275 to 278 are for groups killed in the First World War not described in any of the above mentioned records. These include those lost at sea, members of the Siberian Expeditionary Force, enemy aliens interned by Canada and miscellaneous personnel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and the Royal Canadian Navy.
• Volumes 279 to 302 are for Second World War Service personnel killed in Canada, including personnel involved in the British Commonwealth Air Training Program.

Commonwealth War Graves Registers

This series (volumes 39 to 144) consists of registers known as the “Black Binders” and are a record for registering with the Imperial War Graves Commission the graves of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed in Belgium, France and United Kingdom during the First World War. The registers are arranged in alphabetic order and provide for each Canadian Expeditionary Force member a two page document that contains the following information:

• Service number
• Rank
• Name
• Unit
• Date of death
• Cause and place of death
• Casualty sheet number
• Date of burial
• Location of grave
• Information on the next of kin and
• Communication of the grave location to the next of kin.

In cases where there was no known grave, the page will be stamped with the memorial on which the name of the individual is inscribed, e.g. Vimy Memorial, Menin Gate etc. These registers appear to have been compiled after the war from the information in the Circumstances of Death registers (“Brown Binders”) and from individual service files. It should be noted that the post-war movement of graves, of which there is sometimes a series of movements, will be recorded in these registers.

When the Public Archives of Canada (PAC), now Library and Archives Canada, took over responsibility for historical military service records in 1971, these records were transferred to Library and Archives Canada.

How the Records Are Arranged in the Volumes

The volumes have been digitized and the images appear in the same order as in the volumes. You can browse through the images as you would through the original volume. You can move through the images one by one, or skip ahead by entering a new page (image) number in the page navigation box. The records are not searchable by name.

List of Content of Volumes

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