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SEARCHING TECHNIQUES
When you are looking for information on a particular person you must
find out as much information as you can before you begin your search.
For example, grandparents are a valuable source of family history either
from their parents or stories told to them about their family history.
In military searches in most cases all that is required is the surname of the
person and the conflict he was involved in, for example World War 1.
Obviously, common surnames like Smith and Wood pose more difficult
search locations. Try different combinations of given names, age,
birthplace or other details. For example, “Mondy” could have been called
or written as “Monday”, “Munday”, or even “Mundy”.
Family names can be confirmed by using the Births, Deaths and
Marriages NSW (BDM NSW) online.
Records are kept from the year 1856 and include public access to:
●
births over 100 years ago;
●
deaths over 30 years ago; and
●
marriages over 50 years ago.
Family history certificates within the above year restrictions can be
retrieved by anyone. In fact the restrictions (100 years for birth) fit very
well for World War 1 soldiers who were born over 100 years ago.
Soldiers born in other states can find their details in other state BDMs and
if the soldier was born overseas he can still be found by death and
marriage searches. It is usually easier to find details of males because
females often have changed their names after marriage.
However, many soldiers were born overseas particularly in England. One
way of finding these soldiers is to use the free website,
freebmd.org.uk.
Other means of confirming family details is to use websites
Family
Search
and
Rootsweb.
also provides a good platform for a search. As an example try
Google for “Enoch Blek”.
The
Ryerson Index
and the
Gow Index
provides researchers with
valuable information from deaths, births and obituary notices in our major
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