Gather Personal Information

Step One: Gather Personal Information.

Gather all the information that your family has on your relative:

War Memorabilia

The Eureka Moment would be if you have his medals or any other document that shows his Service Number. This is a prime key to his entire military experience and will short circuit many of the steps in your research. (Note in WW1 the Service Number was not necessarily unique. They were issued incrementally by the Unit, not across the whole AIF. It is the combination of Service Number, Surname and Unit which gives the complete picture.)

Any other memorabilia such as letters, diaries (what a find!), postcards, photographs, newspaper cuttings, etc should be examined to see if you can identify his unit, his army mates, any dates and locations mentioned, etc. Even if the details are not very specific they will help build and embellish the story that is uncovered from other sources.

Full Name

This is a critical step, and the more common the name the more critical it is.

If you are chasing William Goldstraw from Tasmania, you’re in luck as there was only one who enlisted. However most have relatives with more common names and with 340,000 soldiers enlisted there are often many, many similar names.

Also, full name is important. You may know him as Uncle Bert but if he enlisted as Frederick Albert Smith then you may never find him in the records as you chase all the Albert Smiths.

Parents, Wife &/or Sibling Names

All soldiers gave a Next of Kin (NOK) which was normally wife if married, or father if living, or mother, or if none of the above a brother or sister. In rare cases they gave a friend as their NOK but generally speaking the given NOK is very helpful in identifying the soldier.

Place of Birth

Even the State (or Country) is often good enough to assist identification, but obviously the narrower the location the better.

Age

Sometimes when enlisting younger men put their age up, and older men their age down; however generally speaking this is a reasonable test to help identify your soldier.

Occupation.

Called “Trade or Calling” on the enlistment form. It was a different era with lower levels of formal education so there was not a large range of callings. Labourer was a very common but if your relative had a specific trade it would be helpful.

Having gathered as much of the above information as possible I suggest your next step is to chase the information at the Australian War Memorial (AWM). Go to Step 2.