This British War Medal was awarded to 2725 Thomas Edward Wheatley who served with the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. There was little public information available but several small leads gave me 90% of the answer I was looking for.
I found Thomas' grave plaque on line which gave me the names of his children. The electoral rolls then provided the name of his grand children. However, these rolls are from 1980 and I didn't know the married names of the female decedents.
Luckily, Thomas' son's death notice from 2009 was online which provided the names of the next two generations. Unfortunately, I just couldn't find any leads with the name search combinations I was using. In desperation I turned to Face Book which turned out to be very useful. After several false starts I found a likely candidate for Thomas' grand daughter and great grand daughters. I cast a wide net of messages to all the people I thought could help and within minutes Kristy, who indeed is Thomas' great grand daughter, replied. We had a great conversation and this led me to Mary-Ann who I was looking for.
This medal has seen better days but thanks to John and Brenda who sent it to me recently, the path to seeing this medal returned home will soon be complete.
The returned medal tally is now 2081.
Many thanks to Glyn for your fine detective work I know my family will treasure this medal and it will be passed down thru the generations to come.
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