Internet resources: Royal Hospital Chelsea pension records 1883-1900 now online

Chelsea Pensioners' service records from 1883 to 1900 can now be found online at findmypast.co.uk.

Each individual soldier's record is at least four pages long and full of fascinating details that are invaluable to family and military historians.

'Unlike many other military records, which often only provide information about Officer Class soldiers, these records are of "ordinary" soldiers’, - said Debra Chatfield, Marketing Manager at findmypast.co.uk. These fascinating, detailed records enable you to find out so much about your soldier ancestors, even including what they looked like, long before the invention of photography. The colour images of handwritten records provide amazing insights into the lives of our military ancestors.'

William Spencer, Principal Specialist: Military, Maritime and Transport Records at The National Archives commented: 'The online publication of these soldiers' records serves two key purposes: to provide worldwide online access and to preserve, in a new way, some of the most popular, and thus the most heavily handled records in The National Archives. 'The detail in these extraordinary records will enable users to search for specific individuals or men who served in a specific regiment of the British Army - a task which has not been easy until now.'