Thanks to Marg and Zoe for highlighting our ongoing search for donors today, especially from South Australia and the 32nd Battalion.
DNA identification hope for WWI Australian soldiers in Fromelles grave
ABC South East SA / By Caroline Horn and Coquohalla ConnorPosted Thu 18 Jul 2024 at 8:51pm
Private Andrew Perry died in the Battle of Fromelles, far from the small South Australian town of Naracoorte, where he worked on the railways.
He and thousands of other Australian and British troops went "over the top" on July 19, 1916, following orders to charge across no man's land into enemy fire.
That day would become the bloodiest day in Australian military history.
According to the record of one fellow soldier who survived the battle, Perry had helped the allied troops successfully take the first German trench line before he was shot in the head. He died instantly.
His body was left "where it fell" and the ground gained by the Australia and British troops was quickly retaken by the Germans.
His identification tags were amongst those collected by the German soldiers as they buried allied soldiers.
His remains have not yet been identified but are thought to be amongst those of 250 soldiers, discovered in mass grave in 2008.
Most of the soldiers in that grave have now been identified through painstaking research and DNA matching.
However, 70 still have graves without names, at the Pheasant Wood cemetery at Fromelles.
Genealogist Margaret O'Leary OAM is one of the volunteer genealogists from the Fromelles Association who has been working for more than 10 years to try and give the remaining soldiers back their identities.
"We're really down to the ones that are very difficult," Ms O'Leary said.
Overcoming the brick walls
Although female descendants of the Perry family have been identified in Naracoorte, the association is searching for descendants of the male Perry line to provide a DNA sample.
This would enable researchers to try to match Y chromosomes to the yet-to-be-identified remains.
The Y chromosome is passed virtually unchanged from father to son and provides the best chance of a positive match.
The association is also trying to locate relatives of Clarence Rhody Schwan Hoffman, Reuben Harold Magor, Albert Arthur Rawnsley and Alfred George Sinigear.
Like Private Perry, they were part of the 32nd Battalion, which was formed at Mitcham in the Adelaide foothills in 1915. They too were killed at Fromelles and their remains are yet to be identified.
"The 32nd Battalion had only a very small number of men who reported back at the end of the day, alive and well and fit," Ms O'Leary said.
"Less than 100."
Ms O'Leary said descendants of the families of the missing men could be across wide areas of South Australia and Broken Hill and the sometimes disjointed family structures, particularly of those from mining areas, made the search for relatives more difficult.
"These are five brick walls we'd really like to overcome," she said.
Private Perry's father came to South Australia from Scotland and his descendants (or those of related Perry families) are thought to be potentially spread across the Yorke Peninsula, Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Broken Hill and around Naracoorte and Mount Gambier.
The association has traced his roots back to Glasgow to try to then work forwards and find a direct male descendant from another branch of the Perry family line to provide a Y DNA sample, but so far without luck.
Broken Hill boy
The attempt to find relations of Private Albert Arthur Rawnsley of Broken Hill, who was commonly known as Arthur, has also proven difficult.
Ms O'Leary said it was possible that there were still people in Broken Hill and western New South Wales who were related to the family, but the association had been unable to identify them as yet.
Arthur Rawnsley had been born and bred in Broken Hill, but his father's family was originally from Yorkshire in the UK and also spent time in Tasmania.
His parents met and married in Wilcannia, far west NSW, in 1881.
Before the war, Rawnsley worked in the mines from a young age to help support his family after his father, a bird catcher and hawker, deserted them.
His name is inscribed on the war memorial at the tiny town of Mannahill, across the South Australian border, indicating he may have been working at a station in the area, before travelling to Adelaide to enlist.
Ms O'Leary said anyone who thought Rawnsley or any of the other soldiers could be a member of their family should contact the Fromelles Association for more information.