What do the numbers mean?

The maps display numbers of people born or enlisted, grouped by place. These numbers provide a useful indicator, but should not be regarded as completely accurate. They are drawn solely from the data contained in series B2455 and only represent those people whose places of birth and enlistment we have been able to identify. When viewing or using the numbers, bear in mind the following points:

• The place of birth or enlistment was not always documented in service records. This is particularly true of groups that did not use the standard attestation forms, such as nurses and officers.
• There might be multiple service records for an individual, perhaps under different names. Sometimes enlistees sought to disguise their identity and may have provided false information about their place of birth.
• People chose to identify their places of birth with different levels of specificity – for example, some gave a major city, while others identified a suburb within that city.
• Similarly, we have noticed that it was not uncommon for people who served in both world wars to give different places of birth in their two attestation forms.
• Our initial processing of the data produced a list of over 11,000 places whose locations were either unknown or uncertain . We are continuing to research and update the place name data. As a result, the total numbers should increase over time.