A view of the underground storage facility in the basement of Red Cross Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where the records have lain untouched for more than 80 years.

Records' discovery 'like finding Tutankhamen's tomb'

Detective work by a British historian has unearthed information that could enable thousands to piece together their family histories.

Peter Barton was commissioned by the Australian Government to carry out research into the identities of Australian World War I dead discovered in a mass grave at Fromelles in France in May 2008.

Aussie soldiers shelter in a trench during the Battle of Fromelles.

His search led him to the Red Cross Museum in Geneva, and to the card indexes and registers compiled between 1914 and 1918; during that period the Red Cross had acted as a go-between, logging, and passing on information to 30 combatant countries including New Zealand.

Mr Barton said, "To a military historian, this was like finding Tutankhamen's tomb and the terracotta warriors on the same day. I still can't understand why no-one has ever realised the significance of this archive - but the Red Cross tell me I'm the first researcher who has asked to see it."

Those details included whereabouts of prisoners, their condition or injuries at the time of capture, and the location of field burials, including other mass graves, with exact directions as to where they were dug, and the identities of the soldiers who were buried. Where possible, the registers include home addresses and next of kin. Mr Barton was allowed to examine records that have lain virtually untouched since 1918.

He estimates that there could be 20 million sets of details, carefully entered on card indexes, or written into ledgers. They deal with the capture, death, or burial of servicemen. Lists of personal effects, home addresses and grave sites cover page after page. All were passed to the Red Cross by the combatants. Red Cross volunteer workers then logged the information by hand before sending it on to the soldiers' home countries. The records could potentially reveal the whereabouts of individuals whose remains have never been found or never identified.

The Red Cross now faces an unprecedented challenge. The paper records must now be conserved and digitised. More than NZ$6M has already been set aside for a project that will begin this northen hemisphere autumn, and likely to involve experts from all over Europe.

The Red Cross hopes to have the archive online by 2014, 100 years after the start of WWI. The organisation believes that the care and patience of its volunteers during theWar coupled with today's technology will provide a key to unlock the past.

A worker during excavations on the Fromelles battlefield.