Researching the Merchant Marine

During my talk about military archives at the Howard County Genealogical Society, the question came up about researching Merchant Marines.

Some brief research was educational. I learned that the U.S. Merchant Marine has no official historians and researchers. The Merchant Marine predates the U.S. Navy (13 October 1775), the U.S. Marines (10 November 1775) and the U.S. Coast Guard (formerly the Revenue Cutter Service was founded on (4 August 1790)). On 12 June 1775, a party of Maine mariners in an unarmed lumber schooner captured the HMS Margaretta, which was a fully armed British warship.

The mariners involved in “ocean-going service” during World War II do have Veteran Status. They may be entitled to a gravestone, a flag for their coffin, and burial in a National Cemetery. Merchant Mariners who served during other wars do not have this recognition. For more information, see the information at http://www.usmm.org/contact.html

Remember to make a timeline for your ancestor and gather information about the ships and their history while the ancestor served.

I recommend the resources at the American Merchant Marine at War website. These are the links that would be good starting places:

 

1) American Merchant Marine at War

http://www.usmm.org/

This website is dedicated to those Mariners who died during U.S. wars, and contains many links to valuable research material about the Merchant Marines. This website covers a lot of ground, including history and links to help a researcher dig farther into researching their Merchant Mariner and ships. You can also purchase gift items or make donations to support the website.

 

2) American Merchant Marine at War Records and Contact Information

http://www.usmm.org/contact.html

This page has the contact information for service records for mariners and ships.

However, do check the website for more history and historical documents.

 

3) Frequently Asked Questions about the Merchant Marine

http://www.usmm.org/faq.html

This list of frequently asked questions is a great gathering of information about the Merchant Marine including the background about the people, the history, the wartime casualties, and how to join.

 

4) One page Information Sheet Handout about WWII Merchant Marine

http://www.usmm.org/infomm.pdf

This pdf document is a one page summary of how the U.S. Merchant Marine made victory possible in WWII.

Remembering during a time of loss

As I sat in a hotel room trying to prepare myself for the viewing (wake) and funeral of both of my Son’s Grandparents, it was comforting to turn to genealogy. They left this world after full lives, but sadly for us, within days of each other.

Of course, repeating the caveats of capturing information while family members are still alive came to mind. But enough has been written about finding out the stories, the details, and who those people are in the pictures. And enough has been said about reminding to people to make those phone calls and tell people that you love them.

That night I thought back to when my Mother died. Memories of her were running freely to me and to the others around me. Many were stories I had not thought of for many years. For example, after my Father passed away she told me that she was not intending to follow him soon. In fact, if something happened to her she cautioned me “to suspect foul play”.

Each story reminded me of a facet of her personality, especially her quick wit, confidence and generosity. At the time, I opened a Word document to capture those recollections of things she said. It was a way to hold onto the memories and be able to share them with my Son at a later time. It was also therapeutic to put so much into the context of her life and times.

In the past few days, memories have been rushing back to my Husband about his parents, and also about his childhood in a small town.  There were adventures of those adults who are no longer with us. Naturally, I will encourage him to record those stories in mp3 files.

So, I suppose this is a time for mourning, for remembering, and for genealogy.

In Memoriam – Linda Jarczewski

Like so many of my research friends, Linda is someone I worked with over the Internet. She was so giving of her talent and her warmth. She always had ideas or a new way to look at facts. I could pick up a phone and call even though I had never met her in person.

Linda entered our lives through a clever genealogist’s move. She noticed that an ancestor’s grave was well tended and decided to leave a letter on the tombstone introducing herself. Through it she met her cousin Buddy, who was also my cousin, when he discovered the letter and contacted her. They because fast friends and shared stories. Buddy put Linda in touch with me, through my Mom. We combined stories.

Linda passed away this past Summer. I had always told her how much I appreciated her, but I wanted to share how this seasoned genealogist had helped me to be a better genealogist and a better researcher. While I have studied and learned from many genealogists, she was the one who influenced me the earliest and the most personally.

She taught me to look at a record and wring every last fact out of it, and then capture those facts in a database.

She guided me through reviewing my facts and writing a narrative. It was great when she reviewed my case for Eliza Boyle and Charles Boyle being sister and brother. Her approval meant a lot to me, and I heartily agreed when she said they that probably are siblings, but getting more facts would be better.

She spent her valuable time proofreading my first book, “A Week of Genealogy”. Her notes were solid and helpful. Her compliments on both books meant so very much.

As I have always said, a cousin of my cousin is my cousin, too. May you rest in peace, Lady J.

Google Searches

Without a doubt, Google search is one of my go-to genealogical tools. Google is always changing its tools to increase their effectiveness. The addition of tools and features is exciting. The elimination of tools can be frustrating. Google search is not immune from such changes. Over time, Google has removed some of the search operators.

Since “A Weekend of Genealogy” was published, Google has dropped one of its operators. The tilde (~) operator was described on pages 54-55 of the book. The tilde operator was used to return web pages that contained words similar to the specified term. Google manually built the list of similar words to include in the search. There was never a listing of what those similar words were, but by looking at the search results some of the words were obvious. According to Google, not enough people were using the operator to justify the cost of building those lists.

For a power Google user, it means that you can no longer use the search on these terms:

mcmahon ~genealogy

and expect to receive web pages that contain “family history” as well as “genealogy” in the results.

It means that you have to explicitly include the words that you want Google to search for in the search terms. One way you could do this is:

mcmahon (“genealogy” OR “family history”)

One way to make sure you know the current Google search terms is to use Google and search for:

google operators

By investigating the google operators, you may find advanced operators that might help you in your genealogical searches.

 

 

Using the USAHEC Tutorials

If you have had ancestors in the military, using military archives can be a research destination. You may find information about your ancestor, but it is more that your ancestor’s name will not be indexed. It is more likely you will locate collections and documents that contain information about the time and unit that where your ancestor served. In turn, these may contain references to your ancestor. At there very least, they will provide insights into the times and places your ancestor inhabited.

After a visit to the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC), described in a previous blog post, I created these tutorials to capture what I had learned.

The main way to search for holdings is to use the Reference Bibliographies, described here. Use these Bibliographies as a finding aid to locate resources relevant to your ancestors at the USAHEC. You may discover that there are collections of images available for your ancestors time and possibly from the group with which he or she served. In my tutorial, you can learn to use the entries bibliographies and look for digital copies of the books.

When you are ready to narrow down your search to the Library and Digital Collections use this tutorial.

An amazing holding is the Veterans Surveys. These documents have been completed by Veterans to capture their own story of service. Copies of the survey form are available at USAHEC and can filled out by any veteran. The tutorial for locating the Veterans Surveys is located here.

After finding holdings that may contain data, in collections that are not online, you will have to visit the facility to view them. That will be covered in upcoming blog posts.