Thank you to all of those who have served our country and who are currently serving our country. Special thanks to the veterans in my family: My grandfather Richard Zalewski (WWII), my grandfather LeRoy Thielke (WWII), my great-grandfather Joseph Zalewski (WWI), and my 3rd-great-grandfather John Last (Civil War).
Happy Memorial Day, everyone! I’d like to thank all of my military ancestors and all of your military ancestors, too.
Continue for some select photos
After getting more interested in the military history of my family tree due to the talks and searches I did on Saturday, I decided to try some other options. I usually don’t do a lot of searching on Google for family members, since I usually get a lot more misses than hits. I tried to narrow it down by using quotes and full names, locations, etc. Somehow, I had ended up on Google Books. I kept wanting to search their collection of books, so I decided to try now.
I had no luck finding anything on my grandparents in World War II. I then searched for my great-grandfather, Joseph ZALEWSKI, who was in World War I. Unfortunately, his military records were destroyed in a fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center – St Louis, Missouri, so it’s all been info based on word-of-mouth. But, lo and behold, what is this?
The first book I found was “Soldiers of the Great War.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t find his name in this book, but a lot of the text was very small. The second book was much more important, anyway. The second book was “The Official History of the Eighty-Sixth Division” published in 1921. On page 110, it listed a Joseph F Zalewski that lived at 900 Fratney St, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was my great-grandfather’s exact address in that time period. Success!
Now we know exactly what division and battalion he was in when he shipped off to Europe. He was part of the 86th Divison, Company B, 331st Machine Gun Battalion. I scanned through most of the book trying to find any other important information. It did mention that when they were shipped off to France in August 1918 that they never saw combat before being shipped back in November, due to the Armistice. Stories say that Joseph saw combat and was involved in some “major battles.” My guess is that when they “skeletonized” the 86th Division before shipping them back that Joseph was sent to another division. I still need to find this information, but at least I have much more to work with.
The Official History of the Eighty-Sixth Division
By John G. Little, United States Army 86th Division, States Publications Society
As luck would have it, I found a copy of this book on eBay by someone who was selling some of his grandfather’s military books. I was able to download a copy of the book in PDF form from Google Books, but having a hard-copy would be very cool.
So, again, repeating what I said in my last post about newspapers, never underestimate some of these lesser-known places for family information. They can be invaluable.
After going out to dinner for our birthday (my wife & I) with my parents last night, we got to talking a bit about genealogy and some stories about my grandparents. It was mentioned that my maternal grandfather was in World War II. I was never sure on this subject since I’ve heard nothing about. I’m told that he doesn’t talk about it for reasons unknown to my parents. He’s never even mentioned it to my mother. I completely respect his decision. Who knows what he may have experienced in Europe in the 1940s.
I’m aware of all of the documents available for World War II either at Ancestry or Footnote, so I thought I’d look around. I have yet to find any mention of my grandfather in any documentation available. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I saw it mentioned that some documents have yet to be released due to privacy. My mom and dad mentioned that they think he was a Sergeant since my grandmother sometimes calls him “Sarge.” Does anyone know of any other places to check?
My search for that information turned into finding a nice collection of newspaper articles on my maternal family line. I happened to find my grandfather in an article from the Sheboygan Press in 1941 mentioning that he came in 3rd place in some sort of kite contest. I also found their wedding announcement, a mention of a speeding ticket he got in 1968 and a bunch of other neat articles. I also found some other obituaries and wedding announcements. Don’t underestimate the information in some of these old newspapers. Ancestry has a lot of newspapers on file that are mostly searchable. Footnote doesn’t have a lot yet, but knowing them they’ll be getting a lot more and I like their system a bit better.
Here are some examples of what I found:
Just find a local paper on one of these sites, if there is one available, and just browse around by searching for last names. You’ll find some cool stuff.
I ran across a very cool history/genealogy website via The Genealogy Guys podcast called Footnote. They put together a very slick historical document archive system and they are working on scanning important historical documents into it. You’re able to search through them, annotate them, and also create your own “Story” pages with your information.
But at Footnote, finding an image is just the beginning.
We have created powerful tools that let you interact with and enhance what you find. Annotate important information on the image, easily organize and share your findings or collaborate with people who have similar interests.
If you have original source images of your own that you want to share with your colleagues, classmates, friends and family, simply upload them to Footnote and use our tools to make your images searchable and available to others.
Footnote also gives you an opportunity to share your story, ideas or research with others by creating your own “Story Pages”.
I had signed up for the 7-day trial a few weeks ago and I completely forgot to cancel it before it was over (I’m really good at doing that.) It’s not that there was anything wrong with it, I loved it. I just didn’t find any thing from my family or area at the moment, though they’re adding new stuff everyday. But, now I have a 1-year subscription, so I’ll probably start to use it more. It’s still fun to browse these great documents and also to help othes by annotating them.
Check out footnote.com and see if you find anything interesting.
Though, I was alive for more than a year before my great-grandfather, Joseph Zalewski, passed away, I really don’t remember much of him or have any photos of him and I. He seemed like a nice guy. If he was anything like my grandfather (his son) he was probably strict, yet loving. He was probably pretty stern since he was a Milwaukee Police Officer and fought in World War I.
He served in the US Army Infantry during World War I (1917-1918). Research has said he fought with the Allied Expeditionary Forces in France during several major battles. Unfortunately, his military records were destroyed in a fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center – St Louis, Missouri (according to a reply to a 1994 inquiry submitted by another family researcher.) After the war, he returned to Milwaukee where he served with distinction on that city’s municipal police force for 33 years until his retirement.
Joseph’s parents immigrated from Poland in 1890 and out of all of their children, only two of them were sons. Joseph was the only Zalewski boy to have children, making him the only Zalewski line from Poland in the area that I can prove relation. So, even though there are many Zalewski’s in the Milwaukee area, I don’t know how, or if, I’m even related to them. This is one reason for this website along with the Zalewski Family Tree Project and the Zalewski Surname DNA Study.
For the longest time, I thought that I had no ancestors that fought in the Civil War. I was surprised when I ran across a Civil War record for my third-great grandfather, John Last. I ran across this by finding a document calling his wife, Charlotte (Stramm) a Civil War widow. As shown above in the 1880 Census for Grafton, Ozaukee Co., Wisconsin, his wife Charlotte is widowed and living with her son and daughter.
I did find a bit more information on what John did in the Civil War, but not much beyond his Infantry division, etc. I plan to dig into more Civil War research to see if I can find more. I’m still not sure if he died in battle, due to disease, or just after the war. It just calls her a Civil War widow.
This is what I found about his regiment so far:
Regimental History Fiftieth Infantry WISCONSIN (1 YEAR)
Fiftieth Infantry. — Col., John G. Clark; Lieut.-Col., Edwin E. Bryant; Maj. Hugh McDermott.
This regiment was organized at Camp Randall and left the state by companies in the latter part of March and beginning of April, 1865. It was sent to Benton barracks, St. Louis; thence to Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and in October to Fort Rice, Dak., where it remained until the spring of 1866.
Co. E was mustered out April 19 at Madison. The remainder of the regiment returned in June and was mustered out on June 14.
Its original strength was 942. Gain by recruits, 16; total, 958. Loss by death, 28; desertion, 141; discharge, 127; mustered out, 562.
Source: The Union Army, vol. 4, p. 72
Battles Fought: Fought on 16 September 1865 at Yankton Reservation, DT.
Hopefully, I can find more information on this regiment or this battle. I’d like to see what happened to John. Anyone have any good sources for Civil War information, other than Ancestry.com?
