Genealogy Tips: Researching Military Ancestors

Introduction: In this article – to celebrate Veterans Day – Gena Philibert-Ortega gives helpful tips for those researching their veteran ancestors. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”

When we think of researching the soldiers and sailors in our family tree, we look to military records to learn more about their service. This makes sense since these records document their rank, activities, and discharge.

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But what can historical newspapers tell us about a veteran’s service? Digitized newspapers, such as GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives, give us the opportunity to find articles about war and military activities that provide historical context, and articles about individual soldiers, which can enhance the information we gather from military records.

What can be found in newspapers? The following examples provide some ideas.

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Awards and Honors

Hometowns were proud of their military personnel, as shown by printed articles about the honors they received.

This article, “Bronze Star Awarded,” names the receiver, Richard L. Crump, and his street address. It states that he received the award for “meritorious service in radio communication as chief clerk and operator with Army headquarters in the Pacific.”

While this article is more of a mention and doesn’t provide as much information as we might like, there are other examples that include much more including photos, such as this next article about Captain Gordon Carmichael’s Bronze Star. This article provides some nice background and includes his other honors.

How to Be a Soldier

Newspapers provide so much information, it’s probably no surprise that during wartime they also printed lessons to prepare men as they contemplated their potential military induction.

This series by “Uncle Sam” ran in newspapers during the World War I years. The tagline was “Lessons show how any man or boy may learn the rudiments of the American Soldier’s Trade.” Before publishing the 10 lessons, the Wilkes-Barre Time Leader announced that the lessons would give “every reader a knowledge of military tactics and prepare the young men of Wilkes-Barre for selective service.”

These lessons start with orders and commands and then progress to teach how to salute, stand at attention, and use weapons.

Local Military Notes

Most hometown newspapers ran columns on local service members and their activities. These brief mentions updated neighbors and friends on the service member. You can take advantage of these to add information to your family history timeline.

Search Tip: Depending on the newspaper you are researching, this section may be titled something different than “Military Notes.” If your ancestor is mentioned, searching for his or her name should help you find this type of article. Remember to use name variations in your search, such as rank and surname or initials and surname.

Maps

If you have your ancestor’s military records, consider making a timeline of all the battles or activities he or she participated in. You can write short narratives about these and add images, including maps. Twentieth-century newspapers printed maps to help educate their readers about geography and what the war looked like “over there.”

These historical newspaper maps help you understand what your family was reading and what their understanding of the war was. Remember that these places may have been all but unknown to the soldier’s family back home. Maps provided some much-needed context.

Search Tip: To find maps relevant to a war, enter “map” in the “Include these keywords” box on the GenealogyBank search page. Then, narrow the search by a year range. Once you receive your results, narrow them further by entering words like “zoning” and “weather” in the “Exclude these keywords” box on the search page. Try searching with additional keywords like “war” and “battle.”

Your Veteran and the Newspaper

Some of the things I love about newspapers is the ability to find mentions of an ancestor, as well as historical context to better understand their lives. Take time this Veterans Day to search your ancestor’s name in the newspaper. Don’t forget to also spend time looking for historical context like soldier lessons, maps, and articles on the war. Learning more about your veteran should include names, dates, and places as well as an understanding of their era.

Happy Veterans Day!

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Note on the header image: veteran saluting the flag.
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