This is a fabulous effort, and I know others overseas are envious that these records are freely available. The new specific search for name records is particularly good, as it helps filter out common words that might appear as surnames - I have had fun trying to do a general archives record search on my wife's ancestors the Royals ! * while you filter the results, I still find it quicker to do a general record search, where you can specify given names at the same time. This normally also picks up the other various files (court martial records, pay files, gratuity files, war bride records etc) at the same time if these exist. This may not suit everyone of course * you have to be very careful with names and possibilities (as in all genealogy). People often did not enlist in their full name; (e.g. Jack Smith instead of John Alexander Smith); it appears to have been particularly common in some countries at the time to refer to someone by the reverse order of their given names (e.g. Alexander Claude Smith might actually refer to himself as Claude Alexander Smith). I use whatever clues I have in the search - places of birth; likely next of kin. Of course there are cases where the person uses a false name (deliberately) or an incorrect name (innocently - yes I have one !) which are really hard to find. * for new searchers, it should be remembered that the Australian Forces in WW1 were regarded as part of the British Army by recruits - thus there would be many "Australians" who would have enlisted in non-Australian units, because they happened to be in New Zealand, Britain, South Africa etc at the time. * all the Commonwealth Boer (South African) War records are also digitized - note that this is only the soldiers who enlisted in the Commonwealth period, and not those that enlisted earlier during the state period. * some later records have also been digitized, although this is patchy - occasionally some army/air force WW2 records have been digitized, and what seems to be some navy records. You just have to see what comes up. Cheers Peter Gibson Queanbeyan NSW -----Original Message----- From: greatwar-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:greatwar-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of greatwar-request@rootsweb.com Sent: Thursday, 12 April 2007 5:22 PM To: greatwar@rootsweb.com Subject: GREATWAR Digest, Vol 2, Issue 66 Today's Topics: 1. A Gift to the Nation - Australian War Records for WW1 (patrick holland) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:54:51 +0800 From: patrick holland <lambeth@it.net.au> Subject: [GREATWAR] A Gift to the Nation - Australian War Records for WW1 To: GREATWAR@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <461CF6BB.5070205@it.net.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Good evening, The National Archives of Australia has just announced a , Gift to the Nation project. The service records of 376,000 Australians who fought in WW1 have been digitized and are now available online. http://www.naa.gov.au/the_collection/gift-to-the-nation.html Enjoy. Patrick Holland. Perth Western Australia. ------------------------------ To contact the GREATWAR list administrator, send an email to GREATWAR-admin@rootsweb.com. To post a message to the GREATWAR mailing list, send an email to GREATWAR@rootsweb.com. __________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GREATWAR-request@rootsweb.com with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body of the email with no additional text. End of GREATWAR Digest, Vol 2, Issue 66 ***************************************