2014 marks the 100-year anniversary of The Great War, World War I; so called because it was thought to be large enough and terrible enough to end all wars. Would that we were so lucky!
As a child, I was very confused by any war being called “great”; even then, I knew war is a terrible thing. However, now I can see that there are aspects of human courage and heroism brought out by war which are truly great, and which make the ancestor associated with it worth researching. Luckily, for us there are many avenues for international military research on both men and women involved in the various conflicts.
For American service men and women, usually the first stop for official military records is NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration. NARA holds the United States military records for all the conflicts and wars from the Revolutionary War onwards. As with many, if not most, record repositories, various floods and fires have destroyed some records, such as a fire at the National Personnel Records Center, which destroyed most (but not all) WWI service records. However, most states also kept records for those who enlisted or were drafted from their state so even if the federal records was destroyed there still may be important records available from your state. If you know your serviceman’s date of birth, military branch and service dates, it may be possible to order his or her military files online from NARA.gov (or by mail of course).
There are many subscription websites with various pieces of WWI history and or records. For example, Ancstry.com has copies of the WWI draft registration cards, which should have been filled out by most young American men of draft age. These records may contain birth information, employment, and height and coloring information. (They are also available free at www.Family search.org). A World membership on Ancestry also allows you to search nearly 2 million British records, and 8.4 million German personnel records! Another valuable subscription website is Fold3.com that specializes in military records.
Among free websites www.familysearch.org, (The LDS Church Website) allows endless searching once you register for free. They contain many of the same databases that subscription websites contain, and link to many other websites or allow you to browse through unindexed collections. One such browsable collection is the UK Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) from 1917 to 1920, available at www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2126214.
Three particularly fascinating websites are www.inflandersfields.be/en, wwi.lib.byu.edu, and www.worldwar1.com. Belgium was a major site of conflicts in the War and the Flanders Field website honors more than 600,000 who died here. Links provide tours of the museum and an online casualty database by nationality as well as a wealth of other info. The second website above is for Brigham Young University Library. Here you can browse diaries and documents images, official documents and much more of historical and often genealogical interest. There are documents from several nationalities and from the trench soldier as well as “important” personages from international leadership. Finally, The World War I website focuses on American involvement; with a massive online history and library.
The online possibilities for research in WWI are massive and very interesting and worth finding whether you have a service member or not.
Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft is a longtime genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Reader emails are welcome at ninabrawn@ gmail.com. Her semimonthly column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society which meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center at 6:30 p.m. Guests are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.
