17 June 2020

Helping out the MT Druit station of the NSW Police Force

I'm on a bit of a run assisting the NSW Police Force.
This research was for the families of two medals that were being held SGT Frank G. Frank had been referred to me by Christopher G as he and Frank are both former servicemen and wanted to see these medals back with the families.
The first medal was a WWI British War Medal awarded to 12/1565 CPL Harry Osborn. Harry was in the York and Lancaster Regiment and I was lucky to find his service record. This is very unusual as the majority of British WWI records were destroyed in the Blitz. What I found was Harry's date of birth and his father's name. This was enough to narrow down the family.
Harry was married to Ellen and had a daughter. He died in Leeds in 1987. Harry's daughter and her husband emigrated to Australia in the 1950. They had a quite distinctive surname and their son had Osborn as his third name. This was Harry's grandson but he died in 2010. Frank and I combined our resources and worked out that Harry also had a granddaughter and I found her contact details in the White Pages. Frank was soon talking to Harry's only direct descendant and the medal will be with her soon.
The second medal was a WWI medal awarded to Herbert Mills. From the electoral rolls I was able to work out his son's name and his line of work; he was in the Navy. Herbert's son disappeared from the records in 1990 but back tracking through the gazetting of awards I worked out that the person I was looking for retried from the RAN as a Petty Officer and he was also a Vietnam War veteran. This was enough information to work out his address in Queensland but when Frank contacted him, he passed on the details of his sister who still lives in NSW. Within an hour Herbert's daughter had bought Herbert's 97 year old wife in to the Police station to collect the medal.  
In three hours both these searches were resolved and I've made two great new contacts in Frank and Christopher.
The returned medal tally is now 2489. 

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