James Sidney Burke

This is the last of the medals out of the Grafton Box.
2495 James Sidney Burke was 32 when he enlisted in 1915. An interesting comment on his service record is that he was born at sea. James was discharged in Nov 1916 and during his period of service was in 1st Battalion, 1st Pioneer Battalion and 53rd Battalion. James never married and it looks like he lead an itinerant labouring life. He was in trouble with the police for selling sly grog and this was reported in the newspaper. I also found James' funeral notice. Both these entries are below.

The information on James was pretty sparse so I turned to his mother, Mary. From her death notice I got the names of all James' siblings. One name was Stephanie Genevieve Hosford which was pretty easy to follow through the BDM and electoral rolls. Stephanie and her husband moved from NSW to VIC so I had to search back and forth across the different state records. From Stephanie's death notice, which named all her children, I focused on one son, Peter and soon found him in the White Pages. This morning I spoke to Peter, James' great nephew, who I will send the medal to in the near future. 
The returned medal tally is now 2337.