• Royal Flying Corps •



• Searching and Browsing tips •



The database files are in comma separated value (.csv) and tab-separated text (.txt) format and can be viewed using a text editor such as Wordpad, a spreadsheet program or database application. I recommend using a spreadsheet, and specifying 'Text' as the format for each field.


The data has been sorted by surname, initials and date, after converting names to uppercase.


If initials or first names are not shown in the original document then the record will appear at the end of records for that particular surname. Consequently, when extracting records, remember to extract any that have a blank entry in the 'initials' field as these may be relevant to your query.


Hyphenated names appear in original documents with and without the hyphen. For sorting purposes I have treated all hyphens as a space.


Names beginning Mac or Mc are often confused - look for both variations. Similar problems occur with Philips/Phillips, Thompson/Thomson, Johnson/Johnston etc. This is where the ability to browse and compare data has advantages.


The original data contains many errors and inconsistencies. I have generally refrained from amending the original entries unless the error is obvious and it's inclusion would cause difficulty in searching i.e. where it result in a record appearing significantly out of sequence.


Dates are shown in the format dd.mm.yy with the exception of dates of birth, which are shown as dd.mm.yyyy.

Caution should be exercised if converting dates to a spreadsheet format as dd.mm.14 may be interpreted as dd/mm/2014 and not dd/mm/1914. Specifying all fields as 'text' when opening a file in a spreadsheet program will resolve this problem.


Entries in square brackets '[...]' are my comments and do not appear in the original document.


See also abbreviations