Discoveries on the Internet...



Pvt Matthew Holder's War Record

 An momumental discovery was made (by me) this week....

I'd known for a long time that I could access my Great-Grandfather's war record on the National Archives of Australia - Service Records website.  Many of the war records of WW1 service men are available to view for free on the sight.  It's a great place to start if you're looking for information on a soldier.

I also found another site on my journey to discover the forgotten story of Matthew Holder.  There is another website called Mapping our ANZACs which has the records and a lot of detail about other soldiers that enlisted in the same area.  You can find out exactly how many men enlisted from your town or suburb!  Talk about making it personal.

But this was not the big discovery.... I found that I can access all of the Battalion War Diaries of the 48th Battalion for the duration of the war!  This was a big deal for me - I thought I was going to have to go to Canberra to look at the information at the Research Centre at the War Memorial.... but they had been digitised and put on their website!  I am actually able to look at the diaries (although they are very hard to read!) and read the reports from the commanders about the Battalion and it's conduct!


Battalion Diary - 48th Battalion AIF, April 1917.

I've found so much helpful information in the last few days that I want to get writing again... although I don't want to jump the gun (so to speak) and start before I'm properly prepared.   When the summer holidays are over it's going to be harder to find time to research.