Anyone who has been researching their families for many years will know how difficult it was to access records 25 years ago, let alone 50 years ago.  

I am sure people today take it for granted being able to access the digital WW1 service records made available online by the National Archives as a gift to the nation,  and also having the luxury  to access many of the old newspapers on Trove.  

In the “old days”, which really wasn’t that long ago, to obtain copies of your family’s WW1 serviceman’s records, you had to write to what was then known as the Australian Archives and make an application for a particular record.  

You were then sent an invoice with a request for a payment of $15 (1990s charge), after which you received the photocopies of the records in the mail.

There is a total of 1031 names on the WW1 memorials within our shire.

However, this is not the number of service people who enlisted.  

There are at least five servicemen whose names are shown on three different war memorials within the Bega Valley Shire as well as many men whose names are shown on two different memorials within the shire. 

This has been brought about by a particular serviceman possibly being born and raised in one location, and then moving on to a different town or village within the shire for employment. 

This duplication has reduced the numbers down to 892 WW1 service people from the Bega Valley Shire who enlisted in the Great War and whose names appear on the various war memorials within our shire.

For anyone to have researched all these names prior to their records being freely made available online would have been an impossibility.  

To have obtained 892 records, the cost would have amounted to $13,380.  

Many errors appear on these memorials – for example incorrect initials and spelling of surnames - and, without having the luxury of being able to search through these records prior to purchasing to see if a particular serviceman might be the one who lived in the Bega Valley, was a task that could never have been completed or financed.

Even today all records are not freely available from the National Archives.  

While I was recently researching for my book, Remembering Bega Valley Servicemen of World War 1 – Battlefield and War Related Deaths, I had to pay to have a number of files copied, after which the National Archives then placed the digital copy online for others to freely access.  

At present you will find the same applies to the majority of WW2 servicemen’s records.  

Copies aren’t available online until after someone has requested a copy and made either a payment of $20.90 for a digital online copy, or $29.90 for a copy to be mailed out.  

After this payment has been made, then the digital copy is there for everyone else to access free of charge.  

A copy of a WW2 Serviceman’s Nominal Roll Certificate can be printed out online free of charge, but this only contains basic information and not the details that are found exclusively in their service records.

Today we are certainly fortunate to have access to so many records online, but it isn’t that long ago when researching was slow, hard work and very costly.  

This is the reason why the mammoth task of identifying the names shown on the Bega Valley Shire’s War Memorials was not attempted for the 50th or 75th anniversary of WW1.

Pat Raymond

Pambula