Sources & Resources

AUSTRALIAN MILITARY SITES

The National Archives of Australia hold records about service in the Australian defence forces from Federation in 1901.

Pheasant Wood – The Lost Diggers of Fromelles  |  In 2009, archaeologists excavated several mass burial pits at Pheasant Wood near Fromelles. The remains of 250 British and Australian soldiers were recovered from these pits, mass burials made by the Germans after the Battle of Fromelles. Considerable efforts have been made to identify these men, who remains have lain where they were buried together for more than 90 years. This has been a labour involving both the authorities and also many dedicated amateurs, working hard to try and make sure that as many graves in the new cemetery as possible bear a name, and as many families will finally know the exact resting place of their relative.

The Australian War Memorial combines a shrine, a world-class museum, and an extensive archive. The Memorial’s purpose is to commemorate the sacrifice of those Australians who have died in war. Its mission is to assist Australians to remember, interpret and understand the Australian experience of war and its enduring impact on Australian society.

The AIF Project – Australian ANZACS in the Great War | The Project’s major activity is the construction of a database that draws on a wide range of sources to provide details on the 330,000 men and women who served overseas in the (First) Australian Imperial Force, 1914-1918.

Register of War Memorials in New South Wales  | There are more than 3,000 war memorials in New South Wales, and the NSW Government and the RSL (NSW Branch) are committed to documenting each of these memorials with care and respect.

ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland)  |  This site includes a host of educational and historical information on ANZAC Day, the Spirit of ANZAC, and all conflicts in which Australian forces have served.

CANADIAN MILITARY SITES

Canada and the First World War  |  This exhibition is designed to illustrate, through Library and Archives Canada collections, the many roles that Canadian men and women played during the First World War, and the definite mark the war left on our society.

Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group – “The Matrix Project”  | The aim of the ‘Matrix’ to provide information on all of the components of the CEF during the First World War “The Great War” from 1914 to 1919.  This project was initiated in March 2006 as a means to create an authoritative listing of the Canadian units that served in the field in all theatres of the operations.

Canadian Virtual War Memorial  |  This site contains a registry of information about the graves and memorials of more than 116,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders who served valiantly and gave their lives for their country. Included on this site are the memorials of more than 1500 soldiers who died in service to Canada since the Korean War, including peacekeeping and other operations. The site also contains digital images of photographs and personal memorabilia about individual Canadians.

BRITISH MILITARY SITES

British Battles  | This site gives you the battles fought by Britain and its Empire forces from the 18th Century to the end of the 19th Century, illustrated and mapped.

The Dover [Virtual] War Memorial Project  was created by Marilyn Stephenson-Knight and Simon John Chambers of the Dover War Memorial Project to remember with honour Dovorians who fell in the two World Wars of the 20th century.

Faded Genes is a project to re-discover the ancestry of some of those who gave their lives during the First World War. Dave Dixon is gathering the names from various war memorials around East Kent, with the intention of providing some ancestral details for those listed.

Kent War Memorials Transcription Project (Kent Fallen) is Kent’s largest and most comprehensive online civic war memorials commemoration website covering all Kent boroughs, districts and parishes and including South East London (GLC) boroughs that were still part of Kent in the 1920′s.

The War Memorials Trust works for the protection and conservation of war memorials in the UK. It provides advice and information to anyone as well as running grant schemes for the repair and conservation of war memorials. The website provides a range of resources to help you discover more about war memorials and their preservation.

Roll of Honour  |  This site is dedicated to those men and women who fell fighting for their country. It records various war memorials within a variety of counties, and is fully intended to complete as many war memorials in the United Kingdom as possible. The counties and the war memorials completed for each are listed on a separate page. Photographs have been taken of the majority of the memorials, details of the men included and their photographs where possible.

The ‘In From The Cold project’ (IFCP)  was formed to research and identify all service men and women missing from the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list of casualties from the First and Second World Wars. ‘We are determined to get these soldiers, sailors and airmen their due recognition – even after the passing of so many years.’

British War Grave Photographs  |  Photographs Of British War Graves Supplied Free Of Charge.

The UK National Inventory of War Memorials  is a registered charity working to compile a record of all war memorials in the UK and to promote their appreciation, use and preservation. There are currently details of over 56,000 UK memorials recorded in the database, with more being added all the time.

NEW ZEALAND MILITARY SITES

The Auckland War Memorial Musuem Cenotaph Database contains records and some photos for over 122,600 New Zealanders who gave their lives as a result of war, from South Africa in 1899, through the First and Second World Wars to Korea, Malaya and Vietnam in the 1950s to 1970s, and even recent peacekeeping deployments.

The Delores Cross Project is a not-for-profit memorial initiative that began in April 2008. The aim of the Project is to personally pay tribute to approximately 30,000 New Zealand military personnel buried on foreign soil with a hand-made tribute, the Dolores Cross. Unlike other similar looking projects, this is not a photographic project and they do not collect personal photos of military personnel. The success of the Dolores Cross Project is entirely reliant on volunteers and supporters.

The New Zealand History online ‘Memorial Register’  is an ongoing project to document memorials throughout New Zealand.

The New Zealand Wargraves Project  is the website of the New Zealand War Graves Trust. This is the site where the photographs, research and background information from the Trust’s project are lodged.  Photographs and information will continue to be uploaded to the website and already there are over 11,000 photographs on the website. More will be added as they come to hand.

GENERAL RESEARCH

Commonwealth War Graves Commission  | Established by Royal Charter in 1917, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission pays tribute to the 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the two world wars. Since its inception, the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and plots, erecting headstones over graves and, in instances where the remains are missing, inscribing the names of the dead on permanent memorials. Over one million casualties are now commemorated at military and civil sites in some 150 countries.

Forces War Records  |  Search military records of over 5 Million British Armed Forces personnel exclusively cross matched with over 4000 units of the British Armed Forces going back to 1350. [subscription required]

Military Genealogy |  Most British families had relations or friends who served in the armed forces during the two world wars. Additionally, thousands served in earlier conflicts. But sadly, many perished in the line of duty. Indeed over 700,000 men and women were to die, in the British Army alone, during the Great War. Now, with the computerisation of various casualty and other important records, we are at last able to easily access essential facts about many of them.

South Africa War Graves Project | The goal of the South Africa War Graves Project is to archive photographs of every single South African & Rhodesian war grave from the 2nd Anglo-Boer War, Bambatha Rebellion, WW1, Rand Revolt, WW2, Korea, Freedom Struggle, Angola-Border War, Non World War and Police to present day.

The Long, Long Trail is all about the British Army in the First World War: aimed at the family and military researcher, it is a tribute to the men and women who fought and won – and to the million who died trying.

The War Graves Photographic Project  | The Project’s aim of The War Graves Photographic Project is to photograph every war grave, individual memorial, MoD grave, and family memorial of serving military personnel from WWI to the present day and make these available within a searchable database. Now working as a joint venture with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this will enable families, scholars and researchers to obtain, via the CWGC or TWGPP websites, a copy of the photograph of a grave or memorial which for many is impossible to visit due to the location.

The Lost Generation – World War One Cemeteries  is a site of remembrance and comprehensive guide to the military cemeteries and memorials of Belgium, France, Great Britain and throughout the world. It currently have over 3000 photographs plus information on Military Cemeteries and Memorials from many countries.

The GreatWar 1914-1918  is a site which provides an overview of the First World War battlefields on the Western Front by showing you where they are, what happened there and what you can see today.