Why me?

I became involved in the details of Ross Cole's life when I started the Cole family History on Ancestry.com in 2009. Within a year, I had a fair bit of material online, and publicly available. One night, in the middle of 2010, I received a phone call, asking me if I was related to a Ross Cole. Hestitant, and wary, I clammed up, forcing the chap on the other end of the line to explain himself.

He was from the Australian War Memorial In Canberra. In 2007, he had received a box of documents from a member of the public involved in preparing a deceased estate for sale. In the back of a cupboard, this chap had found a cardboard box full of letters and photographs. Quickly, he had realised they were original letters from World War II. He handed it in, and the research unit charged with this sort of thing, tried to locate any living relatives. They came up with zilch.

Two years later, this box came to the top of the 'cold case' pile, and they searched online again. It did not take very long at all for them to find my Cole Family Tree. He rang me the same night. We talked for what seemed ages, and he invited me down to Canberra to take possession of the documents on behalf of the Cole Family. However, I knew I was NOT Ross Cole's closest living relative. So, I went about getting documentary proof to enable me to claim this family treasure.

The photo at left shows me with Robert Fisher from the AWM.

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