I can't find him.

[HarrysMum]

It's a long story Ruthie...........but in a nutshell...

Her mother was running from an abusive husband and met my grandfather. They then took off from Qld and apparently Mum was born in Woolongong NSW. Then they went to Ulverstone sometime between then (1928) and 1935 when my uncle was born.

My uncle found his name on the old school roll when he went travelling down there. But instead of Bowler, it was Boland. So was Mum's. He then found his birth cert in Tassie under Boland as well. My grandfather was Bowler.....Grandma was Thompson (nee Kettley).

Earlier, when Mum wanted her birth cert, NSW told her there wasn't one and they "made up" one for her from stat decs, etc.

Now I wonder if there is one under Boland, but I have to prove I'm her daughter to get it as it's after 1909. I can prove I'm J.......Bowler's daughter, but i have that dodgy cert....lol

I rang them and explained but it all seemed too mush trouble for them. I tried for her baptism cert (strangely after all that living in sin, etc...lol) the kids were brought up Catholic. Grandad as Catholic. The archivist at Woolongong went through all their records for me for the entire diocese and nothing for MUm under any combination of names from 1927 (just in case) till 1935 when i knew they were in Tassie.

Now.................can I offer you a panadol????? lol

[Ruthie]

No panadol necessary....I personaly come from a family where I have a natural mother....adoptive mother....step mother....father...natural father....and the mix of siblings that that combination brings.

It looks like you have covered all options.......so I haven't any clever suggestions.

But my offer still stands if you need me to check anything in Tasmania for you.

[kiterunner]

They have a list of merchant seamen who received WW2 medals on TNA:
WW2 Merchant Seaman medals

If you search for James Davidson it comes back with 14 matches but none have a birthdate of 1922. There are two with no birth date shown (it just says 1946-2000 for the date), one is James Leonard Davidson but the other just James Davidson, so it could be him. I'm not sure whether looking at the image is going to help you work out if it is him or not; it would tell you which medals were issued so you could see if it is the same ones but I imagine they are just the standard ones? Anyway, this link will tell you what you can expect to see if you pay to view it:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/d...ens-medals.asp

As for army records, I don't think you would be able to order his (possible) records from the army if you don't know what regiment he was in, but hopefully someone else on here knows more about that.