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:
- Augusta (Luedtke) Last Obituary – My great-great grandmother
- Leon & Mildred DeBroux 50th Wedding Anniversary – My great grandparents
- Sled Patent Article – A patent introduced by my great grandfather. I want to look more into this.
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.
Brian, if you think he served with the U.S. Army or U.S. Army Air Corps (precursor to the U.S. Air Force), you can check his registration at the National Archives archival databases website.
Go to: http://aad.archives.gov/aad/
Choose World War II from main page.
Under World War II Army Enlistment Records… choose the first icon that says Search.
You’ll then see two databases to search. Search both, one at a time. From the search page, enter just the last name in the name field and the birth year in that field. If it’s a common name, also pick the state.
Unfortunately, if he was in the Navy or Marine Corps or any other branch, you can’t search for him here.
Drop me an email and let me know how it goes. I have other ideas, too. (kidmiff@gmail.com)
Thanks for that link. I don’t think I’ve run across it yet.