WWI in the Passenger Lists of the U.S. Army Transport Service (Part II)

To France and Back: All of the 51st Pioneer Infantry

In part 1 of this series, you learned how to locate an individual in the U.S. Army Transport records on Ancestry.com. In these records, you may find family members or foreign personnel that were transported by the Army. These are from the Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, Record Group 92, held at NARA in College Park. In this post, you will learn how to find records for a specific military organization.

In a previous post , I wrote about Joseph McMahon’s trip to France and back with the 51st Pioneer Infantry. But the whole 51st Pioneer Infantry did not travel together in either direction. From the History of the Regiment, I knew that Company A traveled to France later than the other companies. Using the U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939 database at Ancestry.com, I was able to piece together more pieces of the story.

With these records, you can gather details for the backdrop of the story about your ancestor. We will start with a narrative to demonstrate how to include the information in a story, then show how you can do it.

 

Getting to France

On the morning of 26 June 1918, troops began embarkation on the S. S. Kroonland at Pier #5 In Hoboken, N.J. They started at 10:00 A.M. and finished at 1:30 P.M. Most of the 51st Pioneer Infantry were among them. The 3245 troops on board the ship sailed for Brest, France, at 3:30 P.M.

Company A traveled later, on 9 August 1918. The boarding of 537 troops on S. S. Rochambeau began at 6:10 A.M. at Pier No. 57 in New York, NY, and finished at 9:10 A.M. The S.S. Rochambeau was a French Transatlantic ocean liner, sailing regularly between Bordeaux and New York City. The ship sailed at 2:05 P.M. Among the other troops traveling on the Rochambeau that trip was a detachment of cooking instructors from the Quarter Masters Corp.

 

 

Coming Home from France

Part of the 51st Pioneer Infantry sailed from St. Nazaire, France, on the Wilhelmina on 23 July 1919, arriving in Hoboken, N.J. on 3 July 1919. They traveled to Camp Mills for discharge. Headquarter, Headquarters Company, Supply Company, Ordnance and Medical Detachments, and Companies A, B, C, D, E, and F of the 51st Pioneer Infantry traveled on that ship. There were 4595 people on that trip.

Companies G, H, I, K, L, M and the Medical Detachment sailed from Brest, France, on the U.S.S. Mongolia on 25 June 1919 arrived in Boston, MA, on 6 July 1919. They would travel to Camp Devens, MA. Established in 1917, Camp Devens served as a demobilization center, so presumably these companies of the 51st Pioneer Infantry were discharged from there. Note the dazzle camouflage paint scheme.

 

Naval History and Heritage Command NH 105722 USS Mongolia

 

How To Do It

It is your choice to follow the steps that I used to locate the records for the 51st Pioneer Infantry, or jump right in and find  records for your ancestor’s military organization.

The lists of the outgoing and incoming passengers are in the U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939.  From the database page, you can search using a variety of fields, or browse starting with the List Type (Outgoing or Incoming).

 

 

For the return, I set the Arrival Year field: 1919

And the Keyword field: 51st Pioneer Infantry

 

 

The 51st Pioneer Infantry sailed from St. Nazaire. Some sailed on the Wilhelmina on 23 July 1919, arriving in Hoboken, N.J. on 3 July 1919. Others sailed on the Mongolia on 25 June 1919 and arrived in Boston, MA, on 6 July 1919.

 

 

Next, I tried a different search. Rather than using the keyword, I set the Military Unit to: 51st Pioneer Infantry.

 

 

This provided information about the ships carrying members of the 51st Pioneer Infantry.

 

 

This includes people traveling home separate from their military organization, such as this soldier who had special discharge.

 

 

Use the back arrows, or image number field to look near the beginning of the list of passengers for this trip to find the Recapitulation of Passengers form. This lists a summary of the trip and the passengers’ military organizations. It may cover several page, with the first page typically showing the embarkation information.

 

 

From the Kroonland Outgoing Recapitulation of Passengers:

 

From the Mongolia Incoming Recapitulation of Passengers:

 

 

 

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RootsMagic + Ancestry = Great News

So, the time RootsMagic users have been waiting for has finally come!

TreeShare for Ancestry is included in Rootsmagic version 7.5, which is a free update to RootsMagic 7. TreeShare for Ancestry allows you to move data between your RootsMagic and your personal Ancestry online trees. The free version of RootsMagic, RootsMagic Essentials includes TreeShare for Ancestry!

If you use RootsMagic 7 or RootsMagic Essentials 7, you can directly download the update, or you can the “Check for Updates” feature within RootsMagic.

To read more about RootsMagic working with Ancestry, click here.

Thank you, RootsMagic!

 

WWI in the Passenger Lists of the U.S. Army Transport Service (Part I)

In my lectures, I recommend searching for Ancestry.com’s military records from the Military Records Landing Page.

 

 

When you search from the regular search page, the results are from the most popular 10% of all their databases. Searching from the Military Landing Page, I came across records from: U.S., Army Transport Service, Passenger Lists, 1910-1939. The record in this database give you the name of the person traveling on U.S. Army Transport plus the military organization, the military serial number and whom to notify in case of emergency and his/her relationship to the passenger. The people who would be notified were wives, mothers, father, grandmothers, cousins and friends and their addresses were listed in the record.

This is another possible path to find the military organization and service number of your WWI ancestor! When your ancestor has a common name, you can use the contact information and address to verify you have the correct person in the record.

In the records, you may find family members or foreign personnel that were transported by the Army. These are from the Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985, Record Group 92, held at NARA in College Park.

 

Searching the Database

It is always a good idea to read the information about the specific database to learn if there is a reason you cannot locate an individual. When you search an individual database on Ancestry.com, that information is available on its search page. Reading all that is the hardest thing to do when the empty search boxes beckon you, but at least you know where to find the information if you need it.

From the database page, you can search using a variety of fields, or browse starting with the List Type (Outgoing or Incoming).

 

 

From this page for one individual database page, you can search or browse through the collection. You can narrow down your search to one database, and alter your search terms to find your ancestor’s record.

In addition to a name and dates, there are useful fields to search this database.

 

 

Searching for my specific soldier’s name yielded multiple results, but using his military service number tuned right in to his record. This documented his return from France on the S. S. Wilhemina. I checked the box for “Exact” and only one record was returned.

 

 

The actual record is below.

 

 

Finding his way over to France proved a little more challenging. I had to uncheck the exact box for his service number.

One thing to try  is to use a space after a name beginning with “Mc” (or O’, Mac or Van), but that did not help. It was clear his name had been misrecorded or misindexed.

Since I knew it, I added the ship’s name, and added his military organization in the Keyword field: “51st Pioneer Infantry”.

 

 

This proved successful.

 

 

His name was indexed correctly; it was misspelled in the original record.

 

 

Always remember to select and copy the source citation information.

 

 

Reading through these records is interesting. There are notations about soldiers who were transferred between units, hospitalilzed, and those who were A.W.O.L. (Absent With Out Leave) before boarding the ship to Europe. The experience of training, then going off to war had to be overwhelming. For some immigrants, like my Grandfather, it must have seemed surreal to head back to the continent they had left behind a few, or many, years ago.

These records are a great resource for building a timeline of your WWI ancestor’s service. They are invaluable for connecting that ancestor to a family member and a place.

The next post will cover finding information about a specific military organization traveling in this set of  records.

 

 

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Ancestry.com Landing Pages

Did you know that searching from the home page or the search page only includes the top 10% of the databases on Ancestry.com. To dig into the rest, you are going to need to find them!

One way is through a landing page. The landing pages have usually been created for special promotions, such as one during free access weekends. From the landing pages you can search the set of databases related to the topic.

 

 

In my lectures about ancestors in U.S. military, I recommend searching for military records from the Military Records Landing page. The results will contain records that cannot be found by doing a regular search, followed by narrowing down the results to categories. The records are in smaller databases that require you to do a search in a group of related databases through the Landing Page, or search in an individual database that you locate through the Card Catalog.

The Military Records Landing Page is one that I highly recommend. From there, you can search through all the military record databases. You can also narrow down your search to a specific conflict. The World War I page can be reached by going to the Military Records Landing Page, and selecting “World War I”.

Here are some Landing Pages to try:

U.S. Military Collection

U.S. Wills and Probate Records

Immigration records

New York State Records

Starting Your Family Tree

For those with international subscriptions, here are some International Landing Pages:

Canadian Census

Military Records in the U.K.

 

Good luck and let me know how you do with this.

Stay tuned for searching using the Card Catalog in an upcoming blog post.

Family History Outing: National Museum of the Marine Corps

Have you ever wondered what it was like to land on Iwo Jima? Maybe you have wanted to look at the larger, second flag to be raised by the Marines on Mt. Suribachi. Do you want to see a combat helicopter up close or exit from its inside into a combat area?

The National Museum of the Marine Corps http://www.usmcmuseum.com/ is located in Quantico, VA. The Museum is a terrific place to visit with your family whether or not you have Marines in your family history. But if you have ancestors or family members in the Marine Corps, this will be a special experience for you.

There are interactive experiences throughout the museum that give context to the experiences of the being a Marine and the Marines role in the history of the United States. You can receive a briefing before landing at Iwo Jima and experience the view from a landing craft. You can exit a helicopter in a war zone. You can learn what games Marines played in the Revolutionary War. You can examine the version of the Eagle, Globe and Anchor that your Marine wore.

Docents are located throughout the museum. Take time to ask them questions. They may even walk up to you, and offer to give you more information about the display or area. The docents are Marines, who may have been participants in what you are seeing. They are incredibly knowledgeable about the displays themselves; one shared with us how body casts were made from current Marines for the Sikorsky UH-34D helicopter display in the Leatherneck Gallery that depicting depicts the opening morning of Operation Starlite in Vietnam in August 1965.

 

 

Many aircraft flown by the Marines are displayed from the ceilings throughout the museum, allowing you to get a different perspective of them than you usually do in a static display. The bottom of an A-4E was used as a screen to project a video.

 

 

Timelines are an important tool, and the long wall with the Marine Corps timeline is no exception. When you check the timeline and mention who the Commandant was when your Marine joined, it opens the door to stories about the beginning of a military career. For those Marines who are not with you, the timeline gives context to the times they served.

The museum’s website warns that the depiction of battle scenes may be too intense for young children, so check out the website and decide for yourself.

We also made a stop at the Quantico National Cemetery. The flags on the graves were impressive and moving. Remember that you can locate veteran graves by searching the National Gravesite Locator  http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov.

 

 

Stay tuned for a post about Marines in WWI.

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