Project update - July 2014

Firstly my apologies for the lack of blogging in recent months; hopefully I am back on track to post regular updates!

Just because the blog was quiet that doesn’t mean our project has stopped – it is quite the opposite.

There has been much happening in the last year of the Ryde goes to War Project and we are getting busier as we near the Centenary of World War One.
 

Some of the things we have been working on:
 

·        Continuing to identify and research all service men & women with a connection to the Ryde district prior to and during the war years.
 

·        We have searched the available local papers for names, and references to the service men & women, as well as any events in the local home front during the war years; and we have created an index to these references.
 

·        The Field of Mars Cemetery, Ryde, was walked and all headstones with a reference or memorial to World War One have been sought out, listed and photographed.

Members of the Ryde District Historical Society preparing to search the Field of Mars Cemetery for any World War I memorials or headstones, August 2013.

·        Planning for the Ryde District Historical Society’s Centenary of WWI events, including the publication of our research, has begun.
 

·        We have representation on City of Ryde’s Centenary of WWI Committee, and are working with Council on access to our database, and supporting their events.
 

·        We are assisting Ryde Library with their “Ryde Remembers 2014-2018” events across their branches.

·        Our volunteers or family connections have begun to write the stories of selected names in our database for our planed RGTW publication.