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Explore WWII records on Fold3.com free through May 31

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Exploring World War II recordsHave you explored your family members’ World War II service? If not, you can take the opportunity to explore Fold3.com’s extensive World War II collection free of charge  through the end of May. That seems like a fitting activity for Memorial Day weekend, doesn’t it?

World War II is recent enough that you may have some family lore you could explore by checking out Fold3’s collection, which includes, among other things:

  • draft registration cards
  • enlistment records
  • photographs
  • navy muster rolls

You won’t be able to find service records, which, according to the Genealogy Insider blog, are available only to veterans and next of kin for privacy reasons.

I personally don’t have a lot of direct-line WWII research to do–neither my grandparents nor my parents served. But I have found interesting information in the form of draft registration. For example, the Old Man’s Draft–the fourth draft registration for that war–included men born between 1877 and 1897, so I was able to find information on my father’s maternal grandfather, William Reese Rasco. That’s the front page of his draft registration card pictured above. As you can see, it provides some great information: date and place of birth, residence in 1942, next of kin info, name and address of employer. The back of the card has a physical description–height, weight, eye and hair color, race, complexion and a box for other obvious physical characteristics.

In 1942, William Reese Rasco was 6′ tall and 195 pounds. He had a ruddy complexion and grey hair. I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of him, so I love that this gives me a bit of a mental image.

If you have some time and inclination, I encourage you to check out this collection (as well as the World War II records on Family Search and Ancestry) in honor of your veteran ancestors.

 

Two new-to-me resources: Power Your Genealogy Research with Technology Flipboard Magazine & 4YourFamilyStory.com

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flipboardmagazineToday for some reason I googled “Flipboard for genealogy.” Flipboard is the iPad app that creates beautiful magazines on your iPad (or other tablet, I believe). I don’t really have my mind wrapped around it completely (and when I do, I’ll write about it here, I promise), but the top hit in my google search was Power Your Genealogy Research with Technology, a Flipboard Magazine put together by Caroline Pointer. It pulls together various articles and blog posts related to genealogy. Flipboard is a really enjoyable way to experience the web. You can access it from your mobile device on the Flipboard app, but you can also access it on your computer via the web.

One frequent source of information on the magazine was 4YourFamilyStory.com.  Each day, 4YourFamilyStory.com’s blog creates a list of X number of genealogy things you need to know this morning (might be six, might be seven, whatever that day brings).

The listings include what’s added to various online databases that day and links to interesting genealogy-related articles. Everything is timely and clearly presented. I really feel like I’ve stumbled upon a treasure trove!

The discovery of these two new-to-me resources will prove to be valuable when I’m trying to think about what to write about and what to research. I thought you might enjoy learning about them too.

Do you know The Story Trek?

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STRTK_LargeI have to admit I’d never heard of the television show The Story Trek before I attended the RootsTech conference. The host of the show, Todd Hansen, was one of the keynote speakers and he inspired us with the message that everyone  (and he means everyone) has an interesting story to tell.

On The Story Trek, Hansen goes door to door with a small television crew in a randomly selected city and neighborhood and asks whoever answers the door to tell his or her story for the television camera. Hansen is clearly gifted at extracting stories from people and the show is riveting. We saw excerpts during his enjoyable keynote (which you can watch here; it starts at the five-minute mark). That led me to locate full episodes of the show online. You can watch them on the BYUtv website or download the BYUtv app.

Two thumbs up from me. Enjoy!

5 things I learned at RootsTech

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5 things I learned from RootsTech

Family History Library

I’m still processing all I learned from last week’s RootsTech conference. But several main points are top of mind and I want to share them with you:

It’s all about story. Gathering names, birth dates and death dates is the backbone of genealogical research. But filling in the gaps with stories is what brings the research to life. That might mean interviewing relatives. But it also means searching for documents (like court and probate documents) that can provide valuable information to fill in the blanks.

Genealogists are generous. I heard a talk from Michael Cassara of DigiRoots who not only volunteers with Billion Graves to share information from the headstones of New York City’s Calvary Cemetery, he also buys old, identified photos from flea markets and tries to get them to the descendants of those pictured. How great is that? So inspirational. That kind of generosity inspired me to sign up as an obituaries indexer at FamilySearch.org.

It really is a small world. I met up with one of this blog’s readers (shout out to Lori Krause!), with whom I enjoyed sitting at the keynotes and having lunch daily. We’re both researching ancestors in tiny Vernon County, Missouri. (The population of the entire county is only twice the number of attendees at RootsTech.) I serendipitously sat next to a gentleman who had lived for 15 years in sparsely populated Franklin County, Washington, where my grandparents lived and where my grandfather published the newspaper. So it’s very likely he met my grandfather. It’s amazing to me that in a conference of 10,000 people, I met someone who had met my grandfather in the middle of nowhere. (Oh, and the above-mentioned Michael Cassara knows my husband’s first cousin, Joan Marcus. They both work in the Broadway theater world.)

A conference of 10,000 people doesn’t have to be overwhelming. RootsTech was so well organized that except when the keynote session ended the first day and I was in a crush of people, I never felt overwhelmed. There were no long lines. Registration was lightning fast. It was truly professional conference and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

I want to go back to the Family History Library. One evening, conference attendees were invited to the famed LDS Family History Library for research and pizza. Though the library staff were swamped, I was lucky enough to confer with professional genealogist Lyn Rasmusen who helped me confirm that my records on my great great grandfather, George Washington Adams, were correct. (I had stated worrying that I had him in the wrong regiment in the Civil War.) Just that little taste of the expertise and resources available at the library has me itching to go back!

Incidentally, the video archive of RootsTech 2014 talks is now available. There are 14 classes and 3 keynotes available for you to watch from the comfort of your home, free of charge. I’ll be watching the classes, since I didn’t see any of them live. The keynotes were all great. I encourage you to take advantage of this great resource!