info on samuel faer devonshire reg 8th betallion?1915?

Answer 1

I found the following site that relates to the Devonshre regmt:
http://www.1914-1918.net/devons.htm

"8th (Service) Battalion
Formed at Exeter, August 1914, as part of K1. August 1914 : attached as Army Troops to 14th (Light) Division. May 1915 : left Division, landed at (Le) Havre 26 July 1915. 4 August 1915 : attached to 20th Brigade, 7th Division.2



GENERAL NOTES
Service records for WW1 that survive are at the National Archives at Kew (London).
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/familyhistory/?homelink=main_family

Go to thEIr research guides - the web info below should take you to online guides for:
British Army Lists
British Army: Auxiliary Forces (Volunteers, Yeomanry, Territorials and Home Guard), 1769-1945
British Army: Campaign Records, 1914-1918, First World War
British Army: Officers' Commissions
British Army: Officers' Records, 1914-1918, First World War
British Army: Soldiers' Papers, 1914-1918, First World War
British Army: Useful Sources for Tracing Soldiers

They also sell relevant books in thier shop for family historians searching for soldier ancestors

There is a rather odd site for one of the key books for family historians searching for soldier ancestors at:
http://homepages.tesco.net/ct_watts/army.htm

If he died during WW1 also look at Commonwealth War Graves Commission site http://www.cwgc.org/

For background info try Imperial War Museum
http://www.iwm.org.uk/

Answer 2

Never heard of him.

Is he supposed to be reasonably famous, or is he just a humble private who happens to be your relative?

If you've got as far as placing him in the 8th battalion of the Devonshire regiment, then you have done pretty well already. Most official WW1 service records were destroyed during the blitz in WW2 when over half were wiped out at a stroke by fire and/or the fireman's hoses trying to put out the flames. As a result, the records themselves, which would be at the National Archives in Kew, London - and currently have to be searched in person (though they are supposed to be going online in the near future) - are almost certain to be missing from the files. Therefore, you are not likely to find much info at all on a personal level, though if you were really interested in what the 8th battalion were doing in 1915, you could look it up in the official war diaries kept at Kew for this period, but all this assumes that you have the time and energy to bother.