It’s that time of year again where many of us spend extra time with family and friends. Christmas conversation is often an opportunity to share stories and memories and to explore our family history. Over the holidays you can take this one step further by visiting the National Archives’ new website, Mapping our Anzacs.
Over 375,000 men and women enlisted in the Australian forces during World War I and many of their stories can be found in the National Archives collection – some of these men and women could be members of your family.
Mapping our Anzacs allows you to browse maps of Australia, the United Kingdom and the world, exploring more than 15,000 places where service people were born or enlisted. Once you’ve found a location you simply follow a link to review the details of all the people associated with it. Further links take you directly into digitised copies of their service records.
Mapping our Anzacs provides an entirely new way of navigating the National Archives’ World War I service records – not by name, but by place. Schools and historical groups will now find it easier to examine the war’s impact on their local communities.
Mapping our Anzacs is also asking you to contribute to the Anzac story. You can add notes and photographs to an individual’s service details through an online scrapbook. Or compile your own tribute – an online memorial to service people from your family or community. Since the website was launched in November, people throughout the world have been sharing their memories, stories and photos of our Anzacs.
The website was created as part of Shell-shocked: Australia after Armistice, a National Archives exhibition developed with the assistance of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Recently opened by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Shell-shocked is currently on show in Canberra.
If you get a moment over the Christmas break, I urge you to visit Mapping our Anzacs. You may be able to locate a service file of someone you know or even add your memories to this growing online treasure.
Have a safe and enjoyable Christmas season.
Until next year,
Ross Gibbs16 December 2008