One of the main supporters of this project has been our local paper, The Bairnsdale Advertiser. Greg Noonan of Yeates Publishing approached EGFHG with a question. “Would we be interested in doing some sort of Anzac Centenary project with them?” We responded with the idea of printing a supplement with the stories of the fallen for the duration of the war and they embraced the concept. Greg Noonan most competently oversaw the first two supplements and Luke Robinson has supervised the third and fourth supplements. That is a four year commitment which will see the publication of eight supplements  and we are very proud of all of those that have been published to date.  We are fortunate that our local paper is a “family based” company that encompasses a long history with the district and values family history. If our loacl paper was owned by a multi national the production of these supplements may have been a different question altogether. The East Gippsland Historical Society (Ian Hollingsworth), the Omeo Historical Society (Lois Crisp) and Zillah Norfolk contributed lists and images to the database. We are also grateful to the many individuals who contributed information or photographs of their fathers and grandfathers. We particular acknowledge the many families, all over Australia, who received phone calls out of the blue as we tracked down families who no longer reside in East Gippsland. We sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to this project in any way for it truly has been a collective effort of commitment to bring stories and faces to the names on the honour rolls and acknowledge the few who had previously been forgotten.

Supporters and Gratitude