Carl Hermann Arthur Finster (25 March 1865 – 21 February 1929) known as CH, Arthur Finster served in the German diplomatic corps as a consulate secretary and as a reservist in the Imperial Prussian Army.

He was a keen genealogist and from 1901 he appears in German genealogical journals relating to his consular postings and military career.

[8] He was proposed as a member of the Verein für Heraldik, Genealogie und verwandte Wissenschaften.

He co-founded the Central Office for Personal and Family History in Leipzig and the West German Society for Family History in Cologne,  and was a long-time member of the well-known ‘Herold’  (Berlin) and ‘Roland’  (Dresden) scholarly associations.

From the end of 1920, he was an assessor of the Military Pension Court (Militärversorgungsgericht ) in Düsseldorf, and a member of the Expert Committee at the Main Welfare Office for War-Affected Persons and War Survivors (Gutachterausschuss bei der Hauptfürsorgestelle für Kriegsbeschädigte und Kriegshinterbliebene) in Düsseldorf.

This English edition includes a new Australian section by Lorraine Dooley, which adds the Australian story of the Finster family, from 1849 when Arthur Guido Finster emigrated from Görlitz, Germany to Melbourne, Australia.