AndreaFurness

Re Moot and Irene Commandos

Hi Andrea - to write acceptable articles about individual military units will require access to libraries, archives and museums. Do you live in the Pretoria area? I'm afraid your father's private collection itself cannot be used as a source - unless it happens to include published books. This could be an interesting project but it's going to take a lot of work. I presume (without any evidence!) that these two commandoes existed at least as far back as the Boer War? If so, you might find mentions in various published histories - starting with Pakenham, Thomas (1992). The Boer war (Reprinted ed.). London: Abacus. ISBN 978-0349104669.. The journal of the South African Military History Society - http://samilitaryhistory.org/journal.html - is also a good place to start your research. Your father's papers might of course also contain leads to other possible sources. An important consideration is if you happen to find a lot of source material that is not published, so that it cannot be used on Wikipedia, you might consider writing an article (or two) for the aforementioned journal instead - then the journal's article(s) can be used here on WP. Two Wikipedia groups you might like to join are WP:WikiProject South Africa and WP:WikiProject Military History - I've signed up to both. These WikiProjects are great sources of advice. (You can reply here, I'm watching this page) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I am currently living in New Zealand, so visiting archives isn't a goer. But I will check out samilitaryhistory.org - My Dad compiled the history of the two Commandos and it contains dates and names of those that served. Much of that info he would have got from when he was still active in the Commando Units. But as you say, it all needs to be corroborated from a reliable source and correct citations included. Perhaps for the moment it is just of genealogical interest to anyone who had family members serve in the Commandos and wish to research further. AndreaFurness (talk) 00:05, 1 July 2014 (UTC)