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.

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.

Finding Joseph McMahon and the 51st Pioneer Infantry Regiment (NY), Company B

My Grandfather, Joseph F. McMahon, was born on 29 August 1894 in Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland. He arrived in the U.S. on 6 October 1907 with his widowed Mother and the youngest siblings. Sadly, he died when my Father was a young child. Through this research into his military service, I am trying to learn about him and the stories that he might have told.

As I have researched his life, I found out that many of my preconceived notions were incorrect. Most notably, he became a citizen before his military service in WWI. Also significant was that he married my Grandmother before going to war. I did not know how they met, but the 1920 U.S. Census gave the clue that they were both clerks in the Western Union Telegraph office.

One my earliest steps was contacting the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) of NARA by mail. I received a call from their office asking me to verify some information to make sure that they had the correct Joseph McMahon. I recognized the address in Brooklyn that was given. His records were lost in the 1973 fire, so I received a final payment roll record.

Another step in researching his service was writing to the New York State Archives for his service abstract card. This was done via mail before the database became available at Ancestry.com.

 

From this card I could begin to construct a timeline of his military life.

Joseph F. McMahon – Timeline of Service	Co B 51 Pioneer Infantry
28 May 1918	Inducted @141 New York, NY
27 July 1918	Leaves for overseas
1 Sep 1918	Pvt 1cl
4 July 1919	Return from overseas
10 July 1919	Discharge (Final Payment Roll)

 

My first visit to the U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center was to attend a lecture. At that point, I did not know as much about the 51st Pioneer Infantry from New York. (The person on the desk was not familiar with the term “Pioneer” so I knew I needed to have more information.) These Pioneers were New York State National Guard troops, and not part of the regular Army.

Using Google terms: 51st pioneer infantry has brought up some information

There is a website for Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, SC.  The website includes pictures of the camp and information about the military training there. Some of the information there included:

51st Pioneer Infantry: Formerly 10th New York Infantry.  Composed of 39 officers and 904 enlisted men after reorganization.  Commanded by Colonel J. Guy Deming and filled to wartime strength with draftees.  The regiment left Camp Wadsworth on July 17th with 3545 officers and men.

There is a New York Military History Museum, with a lot of information online.

There are “Gas Attack” Magazines from Camp Wadsworth that mention the 51st. Since the website did not have a search engine, I used Google terms: 51st pioneer site:https://dmna.ny.gov

I am working to learn more about the history the 51st Pioneer Infantry from New York in World War I. My first stop was Google and Google Books.

Combining the information I have found in my Google searches, I have compiled some timeline information. Some may overlap or be contradictory, and at this point I do not know the movements or actions specifically involving Company B of the 51st Pioneer Infantry of New York.

• The 51st was a New York National Guard Regiment, reorganized as a Pioneer Infantry.
• The 51st Pioneer Infantry was formerly the 10th New York Infantry (National Guard).
• 4 JAN 1918 The 10th NY Infantry was re-designated 51st Pioneer Regiment; 1st NY Infantry was re-designated 1st Pioneer Regiment
• The 51st Pioneer Infantry was composed of 39 officers and 904 enlisted men after reorganization. It was commanded by Colonel J. Guy Deming and filled to wartime strength with draftees.
• They were organized in  Jan 1918 in Camp Wadsworth, SC as corps troops unit
• These troops were not part of any Division; they were attached when needed to an American Army or Corps.
• The regiment left Camp Wadsworth on 17 July 1918 with 3545 officers and men.
• They went overseas in Jul 1918
• 29 JUL 1918 Left Camp Wadsworth for Port of New Jersey Steamer “KROONLAND” to France
• They served with IV Army Corps Aug-Sep 1918
• 8  AUG 1918 arrive Brest, France
• Assigned to Corps Engineers, 4th Army Corps, US AEF
• The 51st (and 1st) Pioneer Infantry Regiments served as Corps Engineer support with the 4th Corps.
• They served with First Army Sep 1918
• They served with IV and VI Army Corps Sep-Nov 1918
• 12 SEP 1918 St Mihiel campaign
• They were with the Third Army on the Rhine occupation
• They returned to the U.S. in Jul 1919
• They were demobilized at Camp Upton, New York

Using the online resources at USAHEC, I searched for specific items I want to view at their facility in Carlisle, PA. I used the combined search in the “Library Catalog and Digital Collections” box on the Research Page, described in this Tutorial.

I found:

(1) Pioneer_infantry_World_War_I_veterans_survey_inventory

(2) Militia_Bureau_World_War_I_veterans_survey_inventory (the entry for the 51st Pioneer referred me back to the first document)

(3) (Newspapers) The 51st pioneers [weekly].

(4) (Photographs) Pioneer Regiments – 51st Pioneer Infantry RG522s – Moses Thisted Coll. View of the 51st Pioneer Infantry Regt. in Germany, 1919.

The Pioneer_infantry_World_War_I_veterans_survey_inventory included listings for all the Pioneer Infantries. From there I learned that the 7th through 50th Pioneer Infantry Regiments were never organized.

There was an entry for someone in Company B.

 

I am also finding out a little more about the 51st Pioneer Infantry using newspapers. Specifically, I have begun to use Fulton Postcards because of the number of digitized New York State newspapers at the site.

This post © 2015 Dr. Margaret McMahon. Created 7 August 2015.

 

Check out a new Tutorial

I have posted a new tutorial about one way to search the holdings US Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC). USAHEC is the archive for the U.S. Army. This the first tutorial that shows how to use the Reference Bibliographies that are available.

Go to the Tutorials page and select the link to view USAHEC: Using the Online Catalog: Reference Bibliographies.

I will be posting more tutorials about other ways to search for USAHEC resources. When I visit to view the resources, I will post about that, too.

The ABC’s of Genealogy at the Anne Arundel Genealogical Society

It was great to meet and speak with so many people at the Census table last night! Hopefully you will be using census records, both population and non-population schedules in your research.