You never know where your research will send you.

Some of you will know I have been trying to track down the owner of a book of postcards that form a letter to home during WW1 from the SS Gilgai.  See the two posts Digging into the Gilgai History and A peak into the past to understand the whole story.

Thanks to some links on Pinterest and via two wonderful podcasts, Genealogy Gems and Genies Downunder I have had many people look at the posts, and a few comments that might help tracking down the family.

Recently I was contacted by the  Chairman of the Gilgai Public Hall and Recreation Reserves Trust, who have produced a pamphlet about the ship and its history.

Click here to read the pamphlet

The Trust has a website about the Gilgai Hall and is the process of researching the history of the War Memorial.

War Memorial

Gilgai Hall

So where is Gilgai?  About 10 Kms. South of Inverell, in North Western NSW.  A small country town, who lost men in the WW1 and WW2.   This brings me to a hint about researching Australian war veterans who were lost during these wars, and others.

Search the Register of War Memorials in NSW  and the RSL Virtual War Memorial to find where they are commemorated.    

You can search by the location or the name of the veteran.  The register will then give you exact location, lists of names, information about where the person served, and photos of the memorial.  
The RSL website is a little different:

"We plan to create “Virtual Memorials” to provide a digital home for those people not recorded on physical memorials.  An example of this is the RAAF Memorials complex in Adelaide.  It has no names physically inscribed  - rather it commemorates units.  However, using the structure of the underlying data model,  we are able to digitally assign people to the units in which they served and they are thus connected via their unit to the Memorial, creating a truly “Virtual” memorial."

My Uncle is commemorated at Auburn War Memorial, he lived in Auburn his whole life.   I am going to take some photos myself shortly, but here is one from the website.

So, I have not been able to track down the  family who owns the postcards, but my research has sent me in an interesting direction once again!