Henry CARTER

Sometimes people make it really hard to find them in records. But Henry CARTER is a great example of how using genealogical sources can assist general historians with their work. I searched fruitlessly for information on 2046 Henry CARTER. But using information in his attestation records I was able to track him down via Ancestry. His real name was Levi Lot(t) John CARTER in South Australia. Once I was able to identify his correct name, it became,...

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Possible Pop-up Display for Fromelles Centenary

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the bloody battle of Fromelles. As with many of the horrific events of the war, there is a Stockton connection. That of Private Douglas Caswell, whose remains were recently identified as part of the work conducted on the remains found in a mass grave at Fromelles in 2007, many of whom were unidentified. Since the discovery of the grave, an ongoing effort to identify the men has been undertaken. By ANZAC...

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Apologies for Lack of Updates

My apologies to everyone for the recent radio silence. It's a combination of loosing my job of 20 years and starting a new Uni course. My researching time has been cut down to nothing between looking for work and studying. I am still working on the project but at a much slower pace. I will be finished my first round of study in about a month and should be able to resume regular posting then. In the meantime, you might like to check out this interesting post on the enlistment of the Welsh in Empire forces, including the A.I.F. The Welshmen...

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John William ROSE

John William ROSE is proving a bit of an exception to my usual problems. I can normally find alot of information about a persons early life and war service, and then strike problems with their post war life. However, John is the opposite!! I can't find anything about his life before he came to Australia. No birth record, nothing about his parents apart from names. Nothing about siblings, and nothing about how he got to Australia. Nothing about...

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Gwilym JONES - Identified

Part of my methodology when researching the service people for the book is to look at their lives before and after the war. This begins with looking at basic genealogical information, like parents and siblings. I do this partly to give a broader view of the persons life, to make their bio more than just "the War" but it also has a broader research side effect of finding other potential subjects for the book who may have otherwise slipped through...

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Geoffrey COWEN

My latest problem child is 398 Geoffrey COWEN. I have his early details from his life in Kensington, Liverpool, Lancashire, England. And I have details of his post war life in Stockton, NSW, Australia. My issue is how he got to Australia from England. I thought I'd found him working as firstly a deck boy, then a mess room steward on a number of regular passenger liners working between Liverpool and Sydney. However, it hit a problem when he is...

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Soldier Poster Project

As part of my project, I've made up a number of profile posters of soldiers whose lives I've already researched. On the poster is an abbreviated text of what will appear in the final book, as well as a photo of the soldier and any other information or images of interest. If the soldier died while serving, they have a poppy placed in the top left corner of their photo. At the bottom right corner is their battalion patch. If they served at...

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