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Researching WW1 diggers and nurses

from Sunshine Coast region of Queensland


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2014 was the centenary year of Australia's first deployment of soldiers to Europe to fight in the First World War.

The purpose of the Adopt a Digger Project is to commemorate the centenary by honouring the men and women from the (current) Sunshine Coast region of South-east Queensland who fought in World War One either with the Army, Navy or Airforce. Criteria for a soldier's inclusion is either that he was born in the district, or his next-of-kin was resident in the district, or he enlisted in the district or he is commemorated on a local honour board or memorial. This same criteria applies to our nurses. Since the inception of the project we have decided to include the settlers who took up land at Beerburrum Soldier Settlement from 1916 as the Settlement is such a significant piece of the region's WW1 history. Our criteria dates are 1914 to 1925.

The aim of this website is to create a database which records each soldier's WW1 military history and a brief personal history. This database will be a valuable source of reference for historians, researchers, descendants and school students, and will be a significant contribution to the social and historical military records of Australia, and particularly the  Sunshine Coast region.

We held an exhibition in April 2015 to commemorate the Anzac Centenary and to remember and honour "our boys".

lone-pine-3-matt-resizeA new field has been added the diggers' pages. This field is named "Died in War". It has a dropdown of selections: Killed in Action, Missing in Action, Died of Wounds, Died of Illness. Once there are many entries in the field, it will be a searchable column on the website, such as the columns Name and Town are now. When all the information on the diggers is complete, many of the columns in the database will be fully searchable. This will give researchers statistics of what town the diggers were connected to, which battalion they served in, how many were killed or died of illness. From a social history perspective, this information will be invaluable for the military and local history of the Sunshine Coast region. I am sorry that you will now have go back over your diggers' pages to add to this new field, but it is worth the effort.