Relatives of unrecovered soldiers (missing in action and/or presumed dead) are encouraged to register your details with Army. If in the future we are investigating a case that may involve your relative we need to be able to reach out to family for notifications, funerals and DNA sample requests to facilitate identification. Completing this form will record your details against the soldier to enable early contact should their remains be found.
Only relatives of Australian Army soldiers, missing in action or presumed dead, should complete this form. If you have other relevant information, but are not a relative of a missing soldier, please email army.uwc@defence.gov.au.
Even if you are not the most direct relative, or you know another relative has already registered, you should also register as you may be the only suitable DNA donor.
Please check relevant records about the soldier you are related to in order to provide the most accurate information possible. Please ensure you have checked their service record (if digitised) at www.naa.gov.au.
Please also check their details with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
In reviewing the soldier’s record, you can tell if the soldier is missing by whether they are recorded on a “memorial” or in a “cemetery” with a plot number. Missing soldiers’ names are recorded on a memorial,whereas recovered/found soldiers are buried in a cemetery. This should be clear when you check the soldier’s record on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.
A comments box is available. Please provide as much information as possible to assist with our understanding of your relationship to the soldier. You may also wish to provide further information about the soldier, their last known location or relevant family information.
You may also submit attachments. We are particularly interested in family tree diagrams to help identify suitable DNA donors. Not all relatives are suitable donors, so a tree can be extremely helpful to investigators. There are multiple online family tree generator tools available for this purpose. We also welcome photos of the soldier from family albums (not otherwise available online already)
Data fields not marked as 'optional' are mandatory and will need to be filled out.
Army will record your details for future reference. Should we recover remains which may possibly be your relative, we will contact you regarding DNA, photographs or other information. Not every soldier will be found, and you may not hear from us after registering. Pressing “Submit” will ensure the data is sent to us for future reference.