Phelan and Atkin Family History

From the personal file of AC2 Brian Joseph Phelan (Service no 450649), obtained from the National Archives of Australia: Three days after turning 18, Brian Joseph Phelan filled out an application form to join the Royal Australian Air Force. Character references were provided by the Mayor of South Melbourne, and the Staff Superintendent of the Ministry of Munitions (where Brian had been working for 18 months). Brian underwent a series of tests on 1 June 1944: at his medical examination he was recorded at 67 inches (170cm) and 140 pounds (63.5kg); his complexion was described as dark, eyes brown and hair dark. Vision results differ between eyes: his right had a visual acuity of 6/9, left 6/6. In his aptitude test, he scored ‘very good’ for numerical calculation, capacity for plans and designs, and mechanical aptitude; ‘good’ for general intelligence and borderline ‘average’/’good’ for speed and accuracy at routine. Overall he was considered ‘educationally qualified’ for A...

Hello! Last week I completed my Diploma in Family Historical Studies through the Society of Australian Genealogists - at least I hope I have: I await the results, of course. It is almost eight years since I embarked on building my Phelan & Atkin family tree, using ancestry.com.au, and in that time it has grown to include over 4000 people with many records, photos and articles attached. But since doing the Diploma (and the Certificate in Genealogy before that), and learning more about the 'proper' way to conduct and record genealogical research, the problem of the large amount of unverified information has bothered me. Rather than try to wade through it all and fix it, I have decided to start the tree again!* This will of course be a long process, but I thought it would be a good one, for the following reasons: I can build a better family tree, with fully verified information (or at least notes to make clear where it is not) I had been unable to keep up with the extr...