If there's a WWI digger in your family tree, that connection could be worth more than a story at Christmas lunch. Scholarships such as the Gallipoli Scholarship Fund support the descendants of those who served, and today's applicants are typically great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren of First AIF soldiers and nurses. To apply, you'll usually need to identify your ancestor, confirm their service, and show how you're descended from them.
Here's the encouraging part: Australia's WWI records are among the most complete and freely accessible military archives anywhere. Every First AIF service record has been digitised and costs nothing to view. The embarkation rolls, nominal rolls, unit war diaries and Red Cross files are all online too - no archive visits, no subscription fees, no waiting.
This guide takes you through the whole research trail, from a half-remembered name to a documented service history you can put in front of a scholarship committee - and a family story worth keeping long after the application's submitted.
Step 1 - Start with what the family already holds
Resist the urge to jump straight into a database. Your first source is the family itself, and even scraps help. Pull together:
- The full name, plus middle names, nicknames and any spelling variations
- A service number or regimental number, if anyone has it - look at medals, discharge papers and old letters
- A unit name or number, such as "7th Battalion" or "3rd Light Horse"
- Rough dates of service
- Where they were born, where they enlisted, or which state they lived in
- Any medals, photographs, letters or paperwork still in the family
- Stories - where they served, whether they were wounded, how they came home
Got nothing but a surname and a vague decade? That's genuinely enough to begin. The records will supply everything else.
And don't assume your WWI ancestor was necessarily a soldier. Australian Army Nursing Service sisters served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, and an AANS great-great-grandmother's record sits in exactly the same archive series as any infantryman's.
Step 2 - Track down the regimental (service) number
The service number unlocks everything that follows. One quirk of WWI numbering: regimental numbers weren't unique across the army - each battalion ran its own sequence - so the number and the unit together are what identify your ancestor. If the family doesn't have the number, these sources will:
The AWM Embarkation Roll. Searchable by surname via the AWM's step-by-step WWI research guide, the roll covers roughly 330,000 AIF personnel. Each entry gives the regimental number, unit, age, occupation, address and next of kin as recorded when they sailed from Australia.
The AWM Nominal Roll. An alphabetical listing of around 324,000 AIF members who served overseas, showing the outcome of their service - returned to Australia (RTA), killed in action (KIA), died of wounds (DOW), or discharged.
The AIF Project. Run out of UNSW Canberra, the AIF Project is a searchable database covering the entire First AIF. Because it draws on several sources at once, it's often the friendliest place to search when your information is thin.
Family paperwork. Discharge certificates, pay books, identity discs and correspondence often carry the number - and it's sometimes engraved around the rim of campaign medals.
Step 3 - Download the full service record from the NAA
Armed with a name and number, head to the National Archives of Australia's RecordSearch database. Open NameSearch, type the surname, and pick "World War I Army personnel records" from the category dropdown. If you have the service number, enter it with no spaces.
Every WWI Army service record lives in Series B2455, and the whole series is digitised and free. Click "View digital copy" to open the file - you can page through it online and save individual pages by right-clicking. We've written a full walkthrough in how to request war records from the NAA, and if you're wondering what you're actually looking at, start with what is a service record.
Inside a typical WWI file you'll find:
| Document | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Attestation paper | The enlistment form: age, occupation, religion, address, next of kin, physical description and signature. The most readable page, and the richest one for proving family connections. |
| Service and casualty form | A chronological log of the entire war: postings, embarkations, hospital admissions, promotions, disciplinary entries and discharge. Dense with abbreviations and difficult handwriting. |
| Correspondence and other papers | Letters, medical reports, references and sometimes a discharge summary. |
One thing WWI Army records don't contain is photographs - if you're after a face, Step 6 covers where those sometimes turn up.
For a scholarship application, the attestation paper and discharge details are usually the documents that matter most, because they anchor your ancestor's identity and service - the starting point for the descent paperwork most programs ask for. Our guide to applying for veteran-descendant scholarships explains how eligibility evidence typically works.
Step 4 - Confirm departure details on the Embarkation Roll
The Embarkation Roll captures things the service record doesn't always spell out:
- The date your ancestor left Australia
- The troopship (HMAT) they sailed aboard
- The unit they belonged to on departure
- Their age, occupation and address at enlistment
- Their next of kin's name and address
You can search the roll through the AWM Collections Search or the People search on the AWM site. Entries are scanned images of the original handwritten or typed pages, so you'll be reading the genuine article.
Step 5 - Bring the story to life with unit war diaries
Here's where names and dates become an actual narrative. The service record tells you where your ancestor was and when; the unit war diaries tell you what was going on around them.
Units on operations kept a daily diary recording movements, engagements, weather, casualties and orders. The Australian War Memorial holds them as the AWM4 series, digitised for WWI and free to read. One caveat: they're not indexed by name. A war diary describes what the battalion did, not what Private Smith did. The trick is to match dates - take the entries on your ancestor's casualty form and read the corresponding months of their unit's diary.
Say the casualty form records "TOS 7 Bn" on 1 March 1917 and "evac GSW" on 15 April 1917. Open the 7th Battalion's diary for March-April 1917 and you'll learn where the battalion was positioned, which operations it fought, and what conditions the troops endured - the context that turns two cryptic entries into six weeks of your family's history. If the distinction between all these document types is getting blurry, see the difference between service records, unit diaries and nominal rolls, and for mapping the journey itself, how to find where your ancestor served overseas.
Step 6 - Widen the net with supporting sources
With the core documents in hand, several further collections can add real depth.
Red Cross Wounded and Missing files
For anyone reported wounded or missing after July 1916, the Australian Red Cross Wounded and Missing Enquiry Bureau may hold a case file - around 32,000 have been digitised and are searchable under the AWM "People" tab. They contain eyewitness statements from soldiers who knew your ancestor, physical descriptions, burial details and letters exchanged with the family. Be prepared: they're raw, intimate documents, and often profoundly moving.
Roll of Honour
Where an ancestor died in service, the AWM Roll of Honour records their name, date of death, unit and cause of death. Many entries link to digitised Roll of Honour circulars - forms the family filled out at the time, full of personal detail you won't find elsewhere.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The CWGC database at cwgc.org identifies the burial place or memorial of everyone who died in service, including the cemetery name and location, frequently with photographs of the grave or memorial panel.
Trove newspapers
Run your ancestor's name through Trove. Wartime papers printed enlistment notices, casualty lists, obituaries, letters home and homecoming reports. Small regional papers are a goldmine - they followed local soldiers closely and sometimes published photographs that never made it into any official record.
Honours and awards
Gallantry and service awards are recorded in the AWM's honours and awards database. The service record may note that an award was made, but the AWM database often holds the full citation text describing what your ancestor actually did to earn it.
If any part of the trail runs cold, don't give up - see which Australian war records are available online and what to do when your war records are damaged or missing.
Step 7 - Assemble the full picture
Lay the pieces side by side and a life takes shape. The attestation paper introduces the person your ancestor was before the war. The service and casualty form charts their path through it. The Embarkation Roll marks the day they sailed. The unit war diaries describe what they lived through. For those who never came home, the Red Cross files, Roll of Honour and CWGC records finish the account - and Trove wraps the whole thing in its community context.
The hard bit isn't finding the records; it's making sense of them together. Service records are written in dense military shorthand. War diaries speak in map references and operational code names. Dates have to be reconciled across four or five separate sources. It's proper detective work - rewarding, but it demands patience and a feel for how military paperwork was kept.
For scholarship purposes, you don't need every thread tied off - you need the ancestor identified, the service confirmed, and your line of descent documented. But families who go the extra distance end up with something better than an eligibility file: they end up with the story. Applicants to AVCAT-sponsored scholarships and the Gallipoli Scholarship Fund often say the research itself - understanding who they're descended from - is what made the application feel like more than a form.
Prefer to have the record decoded for you?
If you'd rather skip the shorthand and the squinting, we do exactly this. Upload your ancestor's service record images and we decipher every line of handwriting, translate every abbreviation, cross-check the dates against unit war diaries and campaign histories, and deliver a complete decode in Excel plus a plain-English narrative in Word - a document the whole family can read and pass on. Every posting explained, every date mapped, every abbreviation turned into plain language, for $59 AUD at decodemydigger.com.au/upload.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I start researching a WWI Australian soldier or nurse?
Begin with whatever the family knows - names, dates, units, stories. Then search the AWM's Embarkation Roll or Nominal Roll to pin down the service number and unit, and use those details to pull the full record from RecordSearch.
Are all Australian WWI service records online?
Yes. Every First AIF Army service record (Series B2455) is fully digitised and free to view through RecordSearch, with no registration or payment required. Navy service cards covering 1911-1970 have been digitised as well.
What's inside a WWI Australian service record?
An attestation form covering age, occupation, religion, address and next of kin; a service and casualty form logging every posting, movement and hospital admission; and often correspondence, medical papers and a discharge summary. WWI Army files don't include photographs.
How do I work out which unit my ancestor served in?
The Embarkation Roll gives the unit they departed Australia with. The casualty form inside the service record tracks every unit thereafter, via TOS (taken on strength) and SOS (struck off strength) entries. The Nominal Roll shows the unit they finished their service with.
How do I find out what actually happened to them during the war?
Match the dates on the service record against the AWM4 unit war diaries, which record each unit's activities day by day and are digitised and free. That cross-referencing shows where your ancestor was and what was happening around them.
What if my ancestor was killed or went missing?
Check the AWM Roll of Honour for the details of their death, search the Red Cross Wounded and Missing files under the AWM People tab for eyewitness accounts, and look up the CWGC for their grave or memorial. These collections often hold deeply personal detail found nowhere else.
Where to next
Once you've confirmed your WWI connection, browse the free scholarship database to see every program open to descendants of Australian veterans, and read our application guide before you start the paperwork. And if the service record itself is defeating you, we'll decode it - every line, every abbreviation - for $59 AUD at decodemydigger.com.au/upload.