I received the British War Medal awarded to 2031 John Thomas Lines Highett from Bob Smith in February 2015. During WWI John served in 50th Battalion, AIF and was wounded in action. He also served in WWII with the number SX2614, this time his unit was the 2nd Railway Construction Coy, RAE. The service record also includes a picture John which is a fantastic inclusion.
John's mother's name was Harriet Lines and her surname was used in John's full name and that of his brother Joseph. However, not every public record included this detail which caused the research it become confused.
Recently, I revisited this search and found that a member of the Highett family had put a tree on Ancestry. This was done over a year ago which often means that messages sent via Ancestry aren't read. The tree owner is D Highett so on a hunch I checked the White Pages and found one listing for this name in South Australia which is where John was from. On speculation I called this number today and got the right family. D stands for Danny, who I have just spoken to and he is John's grandson. I'll post the medal off to Danny and Belinda in the near future.
Thanks go to Bob for sending me the medal. The returned medal tally is now 2305.
Wonderful Glyn, thank you so much for all your efforts, you have no idea what this means to us. We were thinking it was a hoax as we were not willing to set our hopes too high after your call. Medal looks amazing, especially seeing the name and number detail, once again, thanks so much for all your efforts and those of Bob Smith originally. WOW! so happy. Cheers, Danny & Linda Highett
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