Genealogy Tip – World War Two Nominal Roll – Australian Armed Forces

If you think you may have ancestors who served in World War Two go to the World War Two Nominal Roll website. From the site:-

The World War Two Nominal Roll was created to honour and commemorate the men and women who served in Australia’s defence forces and the Merchant Navy during this conflict.

This site contains information from the service records of some one million individuals who served during World War Two.

You may search for service record details by specifying name, service number, honours, place (of birth, of enlistment, or residential locality at enlistment). Once you find an individual service record you can print a certificate, if you wish.

Do your search:

Here’s a result:
(This is my uncle Bill Willison’s certificate. He passed away in May 2002 and is greatly missed.)

Above the search result it says:

In addition to viewing this service record, you can also produce a certificate of this service record

Click on ‘Produce a Certificate’

You can print the certificate but make sure you check it in print preview first. It may not print very well. Instead I like to save the certificates as an image, keep a copy on my computer and also upload a copy to my online family tree. Here are the steps to do this.

When you have the certificate showing in your web browser, as above, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. It may be abbreviated to Prt Scr.

The computer creates an image containing everything which is showing on your computer monitor (screen) at that time.

If you use the Microsoft Windows XP or Vista operating system then open Microsoft Paint by clicking on the Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Paint. This will open the Paint program. On the menu bar at the top left, click on Edit and click on Paste. This will put your screenshot in the Paint program.

Click on the select tool near the top left hand corner of the screen. Drag the select square over the certificate so that the square is around the parts of the certificate you want to keep. It may take a couple of tries to get it where you want it.

Click on the Edit menu and click on Copy:-

Click on the File menu and click on New:-

Click on the Edit menu and click on Paste:-

The final image:

Now you have a nice image which didn’t cost anything other than a bit of time. It may seem like a long process at first but the more you do it the more you’ll get used to it. You could also print it and it should come out very nicely. Hope this is helpful to someone!!! Kylie 🙂

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