“The Summer of 1918 (in 2017)”

This summer I spent a lot of time in 1918. It was a time when our nation had entered a war of global conflict, an ocean away. It was a time when U.S. men began being drafted into military service, training and traveling. It was when men from the U.S. took up arms in defense of civilization.

The United States had a small army and had to ramp up quickly to gather the needed troops. Private organizations became part of the war effort. People on the home front geared up to support the war by buying war bonds, wrapping bandages and conserving food. The U.S. entered the war with its own advanced technology, bringing telephone equipment and signal corps operators to manage it.

To do this, I immersed myself in some of the record sets from that year, books published during that time (or just after), books written later about the time, traveling to a museum about the time and even viewing a solar eclipse.

The record sets were Morning Reports and Rosters at the National Personnel Records Center, and the U.S. Army Transport Service lists that are available at NARA II at College Park and are on Ancestry.com. The museum was the WWI Museum in Kansas City, MO.

In upcoming posts, I will be sharing stories about the visits, the records sets, and the books that made this “The Summer of 1918” for me.

5 Things to Tell New Genealogists

Have you ever helped a friend start a family tree? Starting out with a blank tree, and beginning to fill it, is always a joy. I have done this a few times and have come up with some hints to tell people who are completely new to all of it.

 

 

1) Start with yourself and work backwards.

When you work backward, you are sure to construct a solid trail to a family that you can be sure is yours.

 

2) No, really, start with yourself.

Collect and scan all the documents that prove you and your relationships. Think about what you would like to find for your ancestors, and collect that information for yourself. You could even include a brief autobiography.

 

3) Spelling, schmelling.

Do not get hung up on spelling. People in the past were not as hung up as we are on correctly spelling their names. The people who copied down the records often did so phonetically. So, don’t expect the spelling of your ancestor’s names to be the same in each record you find.

 

4) Keep track of your sources.

You will want to know the source of the information. Documenting your facts in your family tree software program is a great idea. It will be helpful when you come across conflicting evidence. It will also remind you where you have already looked, and keep you from ordering the same record multiple times.

 

5) Start a timeline.

When you make a timeline of an ancestor’s life, it makes you focus your search on the correct times and places. The timeline can make you think in terms of the events that were happening concurrently, to give context to your ancestor’s life.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

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:

 

 

 

Save

Save

Save

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.

 

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

3 Mother’s Day Things To Do

No matter how many mothers you study about in history, to you the most famous Mother will probably be your own. There is no time like the present to tap her repository of genealogical information. If that is not possible, tap into your and other’s store of genealogical memories about her.

 

1. Take this time to interview your Mother

Bring a recorder, or use your iPhone, to record a chat with your Mom this Mother’s Day. Alternately, if you live too far away for a visit, record your phone call. (Always make sure Mom agrees to this.)

Undoubtedly your Mother will be thinking of her Mother on this day, so this might be a good time to talk about the women in your family and extract the information that is at the forefront of your mind.

If this is not an option for you, consider interviewing your siblings or other family members about your Mom. Even if you grew up in the same home, with the same parents, family members may have quite different recollections about the family’s history.

 

2. Transcribe the interview with your Mother

Whether the interview is new or old, take the time to type out the words that passed between you.

When I began to pursue genealogy in earnest, my son was a toddler. Taking notes proved to be too difficult, so I recorded conversations with my Mom about her family as well as what she knew about my late Father’s people. My Mom passed away soon after that, so these recordings have been a treasure to me, both to remind me of the facts and to hear her voice.

At the time, I made sure that the electronic files were backed up. Although it was a long while before I was ready to listen to them, they contained a number of key facts to unlock some mysteries about her family history as well as my Father’s childhood.

Transcribing the conversations will take time, but having the words on a page is worth the effort. You can print out (or photocopy) the transcriptions. You can also annotate the transcriptions to include full names, places and corrections to the information generated in the conversation.

 

3. Do a Mother’s Day Worksheet about your Mother

Click this link to download the custom worksheet from a A Week Of Genealogy to capture information about your Mom. Call and ask her the answers. Or compare your recollections with hers. Better yet, wouldn’t it be great to get her to do a sheet about her Mother? Or ask your Grandmother to do one about her Mother? How about getting your children to do one about you (or their Mother)?

This form is in Word format, so you can print it out to write in it or type your answers. Feel free to attach more pages if you have more memories about the items on the sheet. If you are working on the form on your computer, just keep typing. If you use the paper copy, be sure to note that the answers are continued on additional pages.

This post is dedicated to Susan A., who is one of those great Moms.