Hi Listers this whole "Military records not available" thing must have changed, surely? For NZ&Aus records they practically fall over themselves giving you copies of the paperwork up to at least W2, and that's not the proverbial 100 years ago some people claim for closed records . . . . ANY hints on this - my soldier was in fact a sailor on a warship, and jumped ship in London in 1856 - please share. And NB Kay - I don't know when your cousin is going to Germany, but get them a phrase book and audio tapes from the library now. German is an easy language for an English speaking person to learn, structured similarly and with a lot of the same vocabulary, even easier to read a bit of than to speak - brot, bread; butter, butter; . . . . "Hier ist ein Landkart. Es ist ein landkart von Europe" ("Here is a map. It is a map of Europe." Kart as in Cartography, yes? Get her to give it a go, and just ignore the fact that tables and chairs etc are male or female, which in English we don't bother with.) Migs Eder NZ Seeking Theodore Heinrich Gotthilf Eder, b Hamburg 1836. (Kay said) My 3rd ggrandfather Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Lemm fought in the Prussian Cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo. Family stories say he was awarded the Iron Cross amongst other decorations and that he was buried with them and his sabre at Gomersal, Sth Aust. We were told he was an Officer and I would like to check the veracity of this. A few other facts that were passed down don't stand up when checked. Evidently someone from the family went to Germany and obtained the birth, marriage details from the church. He came from Potsdam, his house was with in sight of the Brandenburg Gate. We have a photograph of it. Anyway when over there they tried to check up on his military record but were given short shift by the German authorities. Can anyone suggest how I can find out about this, hopefully without costing a lot of money. A cousin is going over there later this year, she doesn't speak German though I have contacts here that would write letters for us. TIA Kay ______________________________