When a Logan man walked into the Logan Village Returned and Services League with only his father’s name, within minutes RSL staff and research volunteers were able to trace his father’s full World War II service history, including where he was stationed in Borneo.
Stories like that are what organisers hope to uncover when the RSL hosts its free World War I and World War II Australian History Research Day from 10.30am on Saturday, 7 March.
Dustin McGuire, who works at the Logan Village RSL and will run the research day, received the Queensland Premier’s ANZAC Prize in 2025, which introduced him to veteran history research tools.
Mr McGuire said RSL staff used a combination of national and state archives, including the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Nominal Roll, the Australian War Memorial, Trove newspapers and state library records, to find information.
“If they’ve got a name and know roughly which war, we can usually find a full service record in as little as three minutes,” Mr McGuire said.
“But quite often we’ll spend a few hours digging through newspaper articles and other archives to build the full story.”
Mr McGuire said the idea to host a dedicated research day arose from informal research sessions already taking place at the league.
“Quite often on a quiet weekend afternoon, people will come in with just a name and we’ll help them find service numbers, medals and full service records,” Mr McGuire said. “We do it all for free.
“For a lot of families, their parents or grandparents just never talked about their service.”
Through research into his own family history, Mr McGuire has traced around 15 of his relatives who have served in the world wars, including a great-great-uncle killed in World War I and another family member who lied about his age to serve in both world wars.
Mr McGuire said holding the event ahead of ANZAC Day would give families time to organise replica medals, certificates or commemorations.
“We just want people to walk away with a piece of their family’s history,” Mr McGuire said.
It is free to participate in research efforts on the day, but Mr McGuire said RSL staff would collect gold coin donations for the veteran’s charity Legacy.
