Why Your War Record Has So Many Crossed-Out Lines

You've downloaded your great-grandfather's service record from the National Archives, opened the first page, and it looks like someone attacked it with a pen. Lines are crossed out. Words are overwritten. Entries are squeezed into margins. Entire sections are struck through with a single diagonal line. It looks chaotic, and the natural reaction is to wonder whether the record is damaged, defaced, or somehow wrong.

It's none of those things. The crossed-out lines are a normal part of how military service records were maintained, and once you understand what they mean, they actually tell you more about your ancestor's service, not less.

Service records were living documents

A service record wasn't created once and filed away. It was a working administrative document that followed the person through their entire period of service. New entries were added as events occurred - transfers, promotions, hospital admissions, disciplinary actions, pay adjustments. When information changed or errors were discovered, the record was updated in place.

There were no computers. There was no "undo" function. If a clerk made an error, or if information changed after an entry was made, the original entry was struck through and the correction written alongside or above it. This was standard military administrative procedure, not carelessness.

Corrections and errors

The most common reason for crossed-out lines is simple clerical correction. A clerk wrote the wrong date. A unit designation was entered incorrectly. A rank was recorded before the promotion had been officially confirmed. The error was struck through and the correct information added.

On WWI records in particular, where everything was handwritten in pen and ink, there was no way to erase an entry. Corrections had to be visible - and in many cases, they were initialled by the correcting officer to confirm the amendment was authorised. If you see a struck-through entry with initials next to the replacement text, that's the administrative trail showing the correction was official.

Cancelled entries

Sometimes an entire entry was made and then cancelled because the event it recorded didn't happen - or happened differently than first reported. A transfer order might be issued and recorded on the proceedings sheet, then cancelled before the person actually moved. A hospital admission might be entered based on preliminary information, then corrected when the full medical report arrived.

These cancelled entries are still visible on the record, struck through but usually legible. They're worth reading, because they tell you what was planned or initially reported, even if it didn't happen. A cancelled transfer to a particular unit might explain why your ancestor ended up somewhere else. A corrected medical entry might reveal the initial diagnosis before it was refined.

Struck Off Strength entries

One specific type of crossed-out entry catches people off guard. When a person was transferred from one unit to another, they were "Struck Off Strength" (SOS) from the old unit and "Taken On Strength" (TOS) to the new one. The SOS entry on the old unit's line was sometimes struck through on the proceedings sheet - not because it was wrong, but because the administrative process was complete and the person was now tracked under their new unit.

This is one of many abbreviations and administrative conventions that can be confusing without context. The strikethrough doesn't mean the person didn't serve with that unit - it means the administrative action is closed.

Pay and allotment changes

Service records include pay-related entries, and these are among the most frequently amended sections. Pay rates changed with promotions, demotions, and changes in allowances. Allotment records - the portion of pay sent directly to a family member - were updated when the recipient changed or the amount was adjusted.

Your great-grandmother's AANS record might show multiple corrections to pay entries as her rank and posting changed over the course of the war. Each correction was struck through and rewritten, creating layers of amendments that look messy but actually document each change in her circumstances.

Multiple clerks, multiple hands

Service records weren't maintained by one person. Over the course of a war, the same record might be written in by dozens of different clerks at different locations - training depots, embarkation points, base camps, field units, hospitals, and discharge centres. Each clerk had their own handwriting, their own pen, and sometimes their own interpretation of how entries should be formatted.

The result is a document that looks like it was written by committee - because it was. Different sections may be in different hands, different ink colours, and different levels of legibility. A clerk at a field hospital in France in 1917 was not working in the same conditions as a clerk at a training depot in Melbourne in 1915. The record reflects that reality.

For practical strategies on deciphering difficult handwriting, see the guide to reading handwritten military records.

What the mess tells you

The visual chaos of a well-used service record is actually evidence of a well-documented service. A record with many entries, corrections, and amendments tells you that the person had a complex period of service - multiple postings, medical events, pay changes, and administrative actions. A record that's clean and brief usually means the service itself was short or straightforward.

Every crossed-out line is a piece of the story. The correction that changed a unit designation tells you about a reorganisation. The cancelled transfer tells you about a plan that didn't happen. The overwritten pay entry tells you about a promotion or a change in family circumstances. Reading a service record isn't just about the entries that survived - it's about the entries that were changed, corrected, and cancelled along the way.

That said, making sense of all those layers is exactly why the five-layer decode process exists. A Decode My Digger decode reads through the corrections, identifies which entries are current and which are superseded, and reconstructs the chronological story of the service from the administrative tangle on the page. If your great-uncle's record looks like a battlefield of pen strokes, that's exactly the kind of record the service was built to handle.

Frequently asked questions

Does a crossed-out entry mean the information is wrong?

Not necessarily. Entries were struck through for several reasons: clerical errors, cancelled actions, completed administrative processes, or updated information. The replacement entry (usually written above or beside the strikethrough) contains the current information. Both the original and corrected entries can be useful for understanding the full picture.

Should I ignore crossed-out entries when reading a service record?

No. Crossed-out entries often contain useful information - original diagnoses, planned transfers that didn't happen, initial unit assignments, or earlier pay rates. They're part of the record's history and can reveal details that the surviving entries don't.

Why are some pages harder to read than others in the same record?

Different sections were written by different clerks at different times and locations, using different pens and working under different conditions. A page completed at a field hospital in France may look very different from one completed at a depot in Australia.

What do initials next to corrections mean?

Initials next to a correction indicate that the amendment was authorised by a specific officer. This was standard procedure to prevent unauthorised alterations to official records.

Can a decode make sense of a record with many corrections?

Yes. The decode process identifies which entries are current, which are superseded, and what the corrections tell you about changes in the person's service. Records with heavy amendments are common and are one of the main reasons families use the decode service.