Research Guides: Births, deaths and marriages: Military records

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Key to library resources

	In the Library (or anywhere with a Library card for NSW residents)
	Only in the Library
	Publicly available

Military records

Resources

Commonwealth War Graves Commission [external website]
Search across 1.7 million individuals who were in the Commonwealth forces and had died in either WWI or WWII. You can find their date of death, rank, regiment, the location of their grave and information about the cemetery.
Nominal rolls [external website]
Find links to the nominal rolls from the Boer War, WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars. The information available in the rolls varies such as the rolls for WWII, the Korean and Vietnam Wars include date and place of birth whereas the rolls for the Gulf War don't include date of birth and death.
Pre WW1 nominal rolls, WW1 nominal rolls and WW1 embarkation rolls — Australian War Memorial [external website]
Search for your ancestor to see if they were in the Australian Imperial Forces in pre WWI conflicts and/or in WWI. You may find information about their service, birth, death marital status and next of kin. The type of information recorded depends on the roll such as pre WWI rolls don't include age or date of birth or death.
View the digitised copy of you ancestor's entry in the WWI embarkation and nominal rolls for more details. The WWI nominal rolls only include the date of death if the soldier was killed in action.
The War Graves Photographic Project [external website]
Find photos of the graves or memorial listings of war dead and particularly those of the Commonwealth since the outbreak of the First World War. Over 1.7 million named graves and memorials have been photographed by the project.
The project is ongoing and run by volunteers. They have partnered with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
WW1 service records – National Archives of Australia [external website]
Search for your ancestor in the Australian Imperial Forces' service records for WWI. You will find a collection of papers relating to your ancestor including their attestation paper (completed for enlistment), service and casualty form and military correspondence. View the attestation paper to find their age, place of birth, marital status, physical description and next of kin. You can also view correspondence between the Department of Defence and your ancestor's next of kin.
You can view the papers online by clicking the icon in the 'Digitised item' column from the results page.
WW2 service records – National Archives of Australia [external website]
Search for your ancestor in the Army's service records for WWII. You will find a collection of papers relating to your ancestor such as their attestation (enlistment) form, service and casualty form, discharge form and sometimes a photo. View the attestation form to find their age, date and place of birth, marital status, physical description and next of kin.
Some service records are available online. If your ancestor's records are not online, you can buy a copy or visit the National Archives in Canberra to view the records.

Lieutenant Horwood's funeral
Digital order number: hood_16545

WWI Diaries

Search World War 1 Diaries - Our Stories, your stories to find out if we have your ancestor’s diary from WW1 in our collections. You can upload a photo, letter or memento to add to their story.

New Guinea – Allied war graves
Digital order number: a9525003