Hi Smokey, thers still a lot of research that can be done on the soldier even if the family can't be found, although it would involve a trip to london to the pro to try and find his service papers, if they have survived the bombing of the 40's, only about 30% survived, or a researcher who would charge about £10 to try to find them for you.
Ther is of course the option of donating them to the relavant museum, but you have to be aware that they may not be interested unless they are something special, military medal or victoria cross etc, and even those are not guaranteed to be on display, don't want to put a damper on donating to a museum but i'm afraid these are te facts in most cases,but it's certainly worth contacting the museum to get the facts.
to give you an example, i was reading a thread on the war forum (
www.1914-1918.net) only a couple of days ago, it's still ther now for you to read, a gentleman(peter wakefield) donated
his grandfathers ww1 military medal plus a trio of medals in early 2000 to fulwood barracks museum, he was told at the time a recipt would be sent to him for the medals but none was forthcoming, a few days ago he was informed that not only has the museum not put them on display but they sold them to a private collector for £400, so if you do donate make sure you get a recipt and don't expect them to be put on display immediately or permenently.
You could of course put them up for auction on ebay or the likes.
As a collector of ww1 medals myself(collector not a dealer) i would be interested in giving them a good home(depending what price you would be asking for them of course) i would do as much researh as i could and if i manage to trace the family would be more than willing to give them back them, they would not be sold on that's for sure, it's only a suggestion of course and in the end you must do what you feel is right, anyway i will send the medal card as soon as it arrives
jim
