Blog
Family Trees: Syncing, GEDCOM and Backups
Electronic family trees are a terrific way to capture what you learn about your ancestors. They can help you organize and share what you have found. Once organized, you can analyze what you know and what you need to find. At a recent class, there were a lot of great questions about family trees. Thinking about family trees, a blog post might help to sort out some of those answers. While there is a lot to consider about putting a tree online or keeping a family tree on your own computer, there are definitely reasons to do both! Should I...
read moreWhat WWII Military Ancestors Were Reading
The average American soldier in WWII had an 11th grade education. With a lack of recreation, and a lot of waiting, soldiers needed books. There was an effort by the Victory Book Campaign to furnish soldiers with donated books. These books ended up being heavy and the 18 million books raised were not sufficient. So, the Council of Books in Wartime went to work to print Armed Services Editions (ASEs). They were light-weight, miniature books designed to fit in uniform pockets. The titles ranged from literature, classics, history, contemporary...
read moreRootstech 2018 Videos and Handouts
Rootstech 2018 is over and if you did not make it, you can still view some of the videos and all of the handouts at the link below. It is great that Rootstech lets us all be a part of it. Videos can be viewed here. The handouts for the sessions can be viewed and downloaded here.
read moreOur Newest Book is Here!
It has been a long time in the works, and the project has kept us busy, but it is finally here. Using the techniques in the book “Researching Your U.S. WWI Army Ancestors“, the material about the 51st Pioneer Infantry was gathering and combined into a new product. With Rifle and Shovel: The 51st Pioneer Infantry Regiment in WWI is now available on Amazon The men of the 51st Pioneer Infantry were mostly draftees. While other soldiers fought with rifles, they used shovels. They also saw combat. As shells went off around them, the...
read more5 TV Shows That Teach Us About Genealogy
We’ve all watched and enjoyed specific television shows dedicated to genealogical audiences, such as “Who Do You Think You Are?” and “Genealogy Roadshow”. But are you learning about genealogy from other TV shows? “Catfish” The investigation phase of each episode is filled with techniques to search the internet and social media for a person’s real identity and location. You may have had an ancestor who used aliases or whose images might be clues. “The Curse of Oak...
read moreResearching Your Wisconsin WWI Ancestors
When you are researching Wisconsin WWI soldiers, you can use the Wisconsin Veterans Museum’s World War I Database at the Wisconsin Veteran’s Museum website. You can search by Name, City, County, Unit, or Branch, or any combination. Wildcard characters do not appear to be supported, but entering parts of the last name did return some results. For example, entering “Back” in the last name field returned last names like “Backes”, but also names like “Alaback” that have the...
read moreDigital Maryland
If you are researching Maryland ancestors, Digital Maryland may be a destination on the web for you. The mission of Digital Maryland is “to facilitate the digitization and digital exhibition of the historical and cultural documents, images, audio and video held by Maryland institutions.” It’s like having a catalog to what is digitally available in Maryland. There are great treasures like maps, city directories, and photos. Clicking on the links will take you to the digitized collections, hosted on the institutions’...
read moreResearching Missouri WWI Ancestors
As you may know from my lectures and book, it is important to find your WWI ancestor’s military organization. An online way to find out about your Missouri WWI Ancestors is to search the Missouri Digital Heritage website. When you are ready to search, Click on “Search the Soldier’s Records Database”, Scroll down to the search boxes or click here. There are records from many conflicts, from the War of 1812 to WWI. You can leave the selection at All. Be sure to enter the name as: Last Name, First Name PVT Acie...
read moreResearching Indiana WWI Ancestors
As you may know from my lectures and book, it is important to find your WWI ancestor’s military organization. An online way to find out about your Indiana WWI Ancestors is to check the Indiana United States Veterans of the Great War I. It is worth reading the home page about Indiana in the Great War. (Beware of the links on the right side of the page; they take you to other websites.) The links on the left are to WWI topics, which include information gathered from oral interviews conducted with Indiana WWI veterans. In addition to...
read moreResearching Soldiers who died during World War I
By all means, search the ABMC Burials and Memorials to see if the soldier rests in Europe. But, you may not find his name is in the database, and there may be more to the story. Individual Combat units were responsible for burying the deceased soldiers and marking the grave. Then the Graves Registration Unit was responsible for moving the deceased to U.S. cemetery graves. The 51st Pioneer Infantry History tells of GRU work. But, even if the deceased soldier was buried overseas, his remains may have been returned to the U.S. in 1920 or 1921....
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