Clareman in the AIF in WW1: Thomas Casey

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Paddy Casey
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Clareman in the AIF in WW1: Thomas Casey

Post by Paddy Casey » Fri Aug 03, 2007 1:54 pm

Over the last few days the Clare Library mill has been loading one major family history database after another onto their website (go to http://www.clarelibrary.ie and click on What's New to boggle at the goodies).

The latest one is a database of Claremen/Women who served in the Australian Imperial Forces during World War I (1914 - 1918). The source was the National Archives of Australia Website http://www.naa.gov.au/The_collection/de ... 1/ww1.html and the records were transcribed by P.J. Culligan, Kilrush, Co. Clare. My heartfelt thanks to him and the Australian archivists.

One of the Clare men listed in this database is my great-uncle Thomas Casey of Moyrhee (townland of Shanballysallagh, parish of Kilkeedy) in Tubber in Co.Clare. Thomas Casey emigrated from Tubber to Australia around the end of the 19th century, enlisted in the British army in WW1, and was killed in France. Via the Internet I was able to obtain 30 pages (!) of his military records from the Australian archives. Those records were a veritable bonanza. They logged his passage through the recruiting process with height, weight, state of his teeth, name of his next of kin, and degree of fitness. They listed each of the camps he passed through on the way to his death in France. And finally, they included a ten-line description of how he was killed on the first day of the battle of Amiens. The story is summarised at http://www.clareroots.org/Thomas%20Casey-28%20b1878/

If anyone finds one of their relatives in the list just posted on the Clare Library site they would do well to request the records from the Australian Department of Defence via their website. They may have the same luck as I did.

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