Potton War Memorial

The Lives of World War I project, which launched yesterday, uses modern crowdsourcing technology to collect historical data about First World War veterans.

Run by the Imperial War Museum, the website allows you or anyone else to enter information about First World War veterans, for others to see.

So, in a nutshell, today’s technology allows stories about yesterday’s people to be amassed for tomorrow.

You’ll need to be able to identify your veteran – so it would be helpful to know which regiment they served with or, even better, their regimental number. Once you’re sure you’ve found the right record, you can upload photos, stories and memories and family information about your ancestor.

The beauty of it is that this could lead to finding lost living relatives, and finding out more about the lives of veterans in your family through other people’s memories. The timing is great, as a lot of the stories and details are still in living memory, but not for long.

If you had any WWI soldiers, sailors, nurses or other service personnel in your family, take a look and join in at Lives of the First World War