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Acknowledgements Codes Dedication Main Medals Memorials Progress Minor SEARCH Site Sources Submissions Units Dedication
Introduction
The Australians in the Boer War (Oz-Boer) Database Project marks the centenary of the participation by Australia in the Second Anglo-Boer War by making it easier for genealogists, numismatists, local historians and other researchers to locate source materials dealing with individual Australian participants. The project has three objectives:
- to provide free online searches of the data on soldiers and nurses who served in Australian (both Colonial and Commonwealth) units that is contained in the 'Soldiers of the Queen' index to the names in Murray (the official records of the Australian contingents) compiled by Dr. McLachlan;
- progressively, to expand the database by including pointers to other hardcopy sources of information on those individuals plus links to relevant web pages (and the email addresses of those researching them), and
- ultimately, in the process, hopefully to identify and include entries on more of the thousands of other Australians who served in the war in non-Australian units - especially those who died and are buried unrecognised as Australian.
How it Works
The Oz-Boer Database is interrogated using an online SEARCH facility. An offline version of the complete OZB database (as at 1 October 2012) is available as part of my free SOTQ CD which is a 467MB download from Dropbox.
Progress
Beginning in late 1998 with just the McLachlan Index information, the aim is to expand the Oz-Boer Database significantly by the centenary of the start of the Boer War in October 1999 and to have the job substantially completed by the centenary of the finish in May 2002. See my notes on the sources already included in varying degrees. Eventually it would also be nice to incorporate references to the contemporary individual and group photographs of the departing Australian contingents.
Note: Unless they also served in Australian units/contingents covered by Murray, the database does not at present include most of the many Australians who enlisted directly in Imperial units or in Irregular units in South Africa.Errors, Omissions and Links
In order to capture as much new information as quickly as possible, data is being input with no more than a quick 'eyeballing' at that time - no separate secondary check is being done. This is a compromise appropriate for what is intended as a search aid rather than a source document in its own right. Accordingly, if you find records of interest in the Oz-Boer Database, it is strongly recommended that you also consult the sources cited there because they should correct any transcription errors on my part. Moreover, the sources will usually also provide significantly more information on the individuals concerned than will ever be contained in the database.
Contributing Information
Should you find errors in the Oz-Boer Database, please also report them (and any omissions plus suggestions concerning other source materials) to me by email as explained in the Submissions page - Australians only please I can't cope with any more! Whether or not some individual Australians serving in non-Australian units are known to history may well depend on family historians, medal reseachers etc reporting their more obscure finds (and sources) for inclusion in the database.
Also, please let me know the URLs of web pages (including family history pages) dealing with individuals listed in the Oz-Boer database so that they can be included as links. Additionally or alternatively, the email addresses of those researching those individuals. I'd also appreciate the URLs of web pages on Boer War units and War Memorials to link to the Units/Contingents and Memorials pages. The key priority though is identifying all the Australians who lost their lives in the war.
Acknowledgements
Copyright
The material in the Oz-Boer database and McLachlan Index remains the property of the authors and may not be used for any commercial purpose.
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since 8 November 1998.
Colin Roe
last changed 30 December 2012
Acknowledgements Codes Dedication Main Medals Memorials Progress Minor SEARCH Site Sources Submissions Units