30 September 2015

Patrick Wynne

This group of medals and the search to find the family resulted in a pretty interesting story.
The medals were sent to me by the NSW RSL and comprised a WWI British Army group and WWII Australian Army group. Both groups named to P Wynne. Initially, I thought it was father and son groups but information from the UK census, immigration records and the Australian electoral rolls made me think it was the same person.
The only issue I had with this theory was that the birth dates of WWI soldier and the WWII soldier was 5 years apart. My conclusion was that Patrick lied about his age when enlisting for WWII.
Patrick's WWI service was with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Dublin Corps. After the war the Wynne family immigrated to Australia in a couple of waves. Patrick arriving with his sister Agnes in 1923.
During WWII he served as NX110473 and it was his enlistment location and NOK name which gave me the only clue to who this Patrick was as there was about 20 candidates to choose from.
He was living in Rosebery NSW when he enlisted and his next of kin was Kathleen. The only people that I can find with this name and location combination in the electoral roll was the family of Thadeus and Kathleen Wynne. Using this information I back tracked through all those records I mentioned and managed to confirm that WWI Patrick and WWII Patrick was the same man.
Patrick did not marry so it was the decedents of one of his many siblings I was looking for. Unfortunately, the family suffered several tragedies but I was able to locate Patrick's great niece.
Thank you to Claudia at the NSW RSL.
The returned medal tally is now 1741.

5 comments:

  1. I am sure she will treasure them :)

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  2. Great job. Warms my heart to read these stories. These medals are a family treasure. I see gongs in pawn shops from time to time and i feel like buying them so i van find some owners wjo will respect and honour them.

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  3. I agree with you earlier comments - from Sandra - these are
    treasures and looks as though you are looking after them.

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  4. Thank you all very much for your comments.

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  5. Thankyou Glyn for your tireless work in reuniting Medals with relatives. I am the recipient of Patricks medals. Anne

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