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xenithI shall write a short (well) bit about my list of names before I start talking about some of the things found while looking for individuals. This could be interesting because brain is doing weird word substitutions like "out" instead of "about" and missing out works like "brain" so hopefully it will make sense :)
If you're looking for the WW I records for someone, you go the National Archives website, go to the records search page, select "Name search" and the first item under category is "Australian Defence Forces personnel records", then under that "Army personnel" and then World War I.
Then you'll get a list of results that give name, serial number (or rank), place of birth, place of enlistment and next of kin e.g.
Eeles Eustace : SERN 368 : POB Nile TAS : POE Claremont TAS : NOK F Eeles George
Or if you're not looking for a particular surname, you can search on series B2455 First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920). Which is what I did, with "tas" in the keyword field so it bought up every entry with tas in the results (including any with that in the name, but they were all born or enlisted in the state anyway). Which gave me a very long list (3 Mb in size) but there are some problems. It doesn't include...
Anyone who was born elsewhere, grew up here and enlisted elsewhere. This is a small but not insignificant number.
If the attestation pages were lost the POB and POE are given as N/A so they are missed
Someone who enlisted as an officer with the different forms so the POB and POE are given as N/A
Any others who for some reason didn't have an entry for POB or POE (e.g. nurses don't always have all the details listed on the first page).
Those who joined overseas military forces
It does include a small number who enlisted, commenced training but didn't get to serve. Of the two we looked at, one was medically discharged and one signed up in October 1918. I think this might include all those without a service number or rank, so about 200 of them.
The bigger problem though... "First Australian Imperial Force" included army personnel, nurses, the flying corps but not the navy. On the pull down menu on the search page there is an entry for "Navy personnel" below the army, but it's not broken up into conflicts. This would because Series A6770 is "Service Cards for Petty Officers and Men, 1911-1970" ALL LUMPED IN TOGETHER. Except I realised later, they're not ALL together. These is also "A6769, Service Cards for Navy Officers, 1911-1970". I did a keyword search on both these series and ended up with 5000 names, and then pulled out all the ones born on or before 1905.
1905 because that is the absolute earliest someone could be born and be too young to have served in WWI. Do you know the minimum age to enlist in the navy then? I don't, but I've come across a number of 14 year olds so I assume that is it. Although I have found one 13.5 year old but he was enrolling in the naval college and his brothers, father, uncles, grandfather etc were all military officers so there might have been some strings pulled.
Then there is the problem of finding out if the individuals actually saw service in WW I. Those "Serve cards" are a single card, with mostly personal details on the front and service details on the back, But even if there is an entry for the relevant years, it doesn't always mean war service. It did occur to me that if they were issue medals (which is listed on the cards), then they qualify for inclusion. (And since then I have no seen any mentions of medals even amongst those know to have served.) The young officer create another problem. They enrolled at the naval college as cadet midshipmen, and were listed on the books of Cerberus, for about four years, when they were then rated as Midshipmen. But, it seems they were then sent off to the Royal Navy (UK) for more training and experience, and during that time they might have seen active service but it's not going to appear on their RAN record. Their was a lost interchanging between the Royal Navy & the Royal Australian navy and often the only indication is "RN" scrawled in a corner. One fellow I might mention later joined the army, fought at Gallipoli, ran off to Royal Navy for the rest of the way and afterwards was a lieutenant in the RAN for two years before becoming a light house keeper. People. Interesting.
Also, as well as making the list as complete as possible, I'm making separate lists for those in the flying corps and nurses.
The answer to all the above problems is to use other sources. The start of list of navy personnel comes from a book about the Sydney/Emden battle that listed all the Australian born crew, with where they were living when they signed up (which is really good because it gets around the born elsewhere/enlisted elsewhere problem). Any mention of an officer in a book or a photo in the Weekly Courier gets checked, and added. Ancestry gave up lists of men who enlisted in the Canadian & US armies (birthplace "Great Britain, Tasmania"), and some UK servicemen. We've searched the Commonwealth War Graves site, and the London Gazette archives. A memorial plaque at St Helens (see a photo of it here (click on the little camera icons)) gives a list of Tasmanian nurses, with about 20 names that weren't already on my list. They're what I'm checking at the moment, Some are errors/shouldn't be on the list. I've added a handful though. Then I'll go and look through the British nursing records, as I know there were Australian nurses who signed up there. There's also a list of people in the 1911 English census who were born in Tasmania but in the Royal Navy.
The problem I have though, it takes time to check each source and we keep finding new ones. So my To Do List is getting longer and longer (and really not helped by losing a week to LOST FILES, THANK YOU COUNCIL IT PEOPLE). I'll have to call it Project Hydra, although I really want to call it Cerberus.
If you're looking for the WW I records for someone, you go the National Archives website, go to the records search page, select "Name search" and the first item under category is "Australian Defence Forces personnel records", then under that "Army personnel" and then World War I.
Then you'll get a list of results that give name, serial number (or rank), place of birth, place of enlistment and next of kin e.g.
Eeles Eustace : SERN 368 : POB Nile TAS : POE Claremont TAS : NOK F Eeles George
Or if you're not looking for a particular surname, you can search on series B2455 First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers, 1914-1920). Which is what I did, with "tas" in the keyword field so it bought up every entry with tas in the results (including any with that in the name, but they were all born or enlisted in the state anyway). Which gave me a very long list (3 Mb in size) but there are some problems. It doesn't include...
It does include a small number who enlisted, commenced training but didn't get to serve. Of the two we looked at, one was medically discharged and one signed up in October 1918. I think this might include all those without a service number or rank, so about 200 of them.
The bigger problem though... "First Australian Imperial Force" included army personnel, nurses, the flying corps but not the navy. On the pull down menu on the search page there is an entry for "Navy personnel" below the army, but it's not broken up into conflicts. This would because Series A6770 is "Service Cards for Petty Officers and Men, 1911-1970" ALL LUMPED IN TOGETHER. Except I realised later, they're not ALL together. These is also "A6769, Service Cards for Navy Officers, 1911-1970". I did a keyword search on both these series and ended up with 5000 names, and then pulled out all the ones born on or before 1905.
1905 because that is the absolute earliest someone could be born and be too young to have served in WWI. Do you know the minimum age to enlist in the navy then? I don't, but I've come across a number of 14 year olds so I assume that is it. Although I have found one 13.5 year old but he was enrolling in the naval college and his brothers, father, uncles, grandfather etc were all military officers so there might have been some strings pulled.
Then there is the problem of finding out if the individuals actually saw service in WW I. Those "Serve cards" are a single card, with mostly personal details on the front and service details on the back, But even if there is an entry for the relevant years, it doesn't always mean war service. It did occur to me that if they were issue medals (which is listed on the cards), then they qualify for inclusion. (And since then I have no seen any mentions of medals even amongst those know to have served.) The young officer create another problem. They enrolled at the naval college as cadet midshipmen, and were listed on the books of Cerberus, for about four years, when they were then rated as Midshipmen. But, it seems they were then sent off to the Royal Navy (UK) for more training and experience, and during that time they might have seen active service but it's not going to appear on their RAN record. Their was a lost interchanging between the Royal Navy & the Royal Australian navy and often the only indication is "RN" scrawled in a corner. One fellow I might mention later joined the army, fought at Gallipoli, ran off to Royal Navy for the rest of the way and afterwards was a lieutenant in the RAN for two years before becoming a light house keeper. People. Interesting.
Also, as well as making the list as complete as possible, I'm making separate lists for those in the flying corps and nurses.
The answer to all the above problems is to use other sources. The start of list of navy personnel comes from a book about the Sydney/Emden battle that listed all the Australian born crew, with where they were living when they signed up (which is really good because it gets around the born elsewhere/enlisted elsewhere problem). Any mention of an officer in a book or a photo in the Weekly Courier gets checked, and added. Ancestry gave up lists of men who enlisted in the Canadian & US armies (birthplace "Great Britain, Tasmania"), and some UK servicemen. We've searched the Commonwealth War Graves site, and the London Gazette archives. A memorial plaque at St Helens (see a photo of it here (click on the little camera icons)) gives a list of Tasmanian nurses, with about 20 names that weren't already on my list. They're what I'm checking at the moment, Some are errors/shouldn't be on the list. I've added a handful though. Then I'll go and look through the British nursing records, as I know there were Australian nurses who signed up there. There's also a list of people in the 1911 English census who were born in Tasmania but in the Royal Navy.
The problem I have though, it takes time to check each source and we keep finding new ones. So my To Do List is getting longer and longer (and really not helped by losing a week to LOST FILES, THANK YOU COUNCIL IT PEOPLE). I'll have to call it Project Hydra, although I really want to call it Cerberus.
