27
My answer consists of three parts. I start with World War II because more (individual) records are available and I assume people are more interested in it. The second part focusses on World War I and possible research difficulties. The last part covers projects and institutions providing e.g. information on burial sites and memorials of both wars.
World War ...
14
I've been using a Military Service event with a description along the lines of Award of the XXX to YYY and an appropriate date and source.
13
The image is actually from a set of muster rolls, for which one part of this batch of returns is subtitled, "Discharged." The graphic below is from the same image page listed above, it shows the subheading. (Your man FEITLER was the fourth listed corporal.)
See Ancestry's "Source Description" for "About U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1958." Citing ...
11
Based on this link, G.O. stands for "General Orders" and "G.O.C.C." stands for "General Orders by the Commander in Chief". This Google query also turns up other examples that seem to point to the same expansions.
10
If Nicholas van Bergen graduated from Annapolis in 1921 (as suggested by Canadian Girls Scout's source) then it is possible that 1360 is his full Service Number.
The numbers 501 to 999 were issued to officers serving post WWI and from 1920 to the outbreak of WWII, numbers issued were from 1,000 to 125,000 (as the Navy grew rapidly).
Since he was born in ...
10
Any search for a UK casualty in WW1 and WW2 should always start with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website as it should cover all such deaths. This may, of course, be the site you found! There is only one William John Miller in the Naval casualties during WW2 - the one you found. However - a word of caution - bureaucracy is never as careful as we'd ...
10
India Office Family History Search within the British Library is an excellent starting point for research involving British ancestors in India (or Anglo Indian ancestors). For this particular question, the Abbreviations and Glossary page is invaluable.
8
When a straightforward search for a record comes up empty, I think it's important to step back and look at the larger picture, so that one can understand the context of the record -- that often leads to clues about where one might find it.
The question as posed actually has two separate questions in it. One is to find out more about the incident in which ...
8
Take a look at the image and scroll back a few pages, to the start of that enumeration book. You will see it shows the location of the regiment at the time of enumeration:
Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa
If, for some reason, you did not have access to the images, you can go to The National Archives catalogue and search for the reference given in your ...
7
Service Number:
See if you can find him in the U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949 database at Ancestry.com. The images include the service number.
Social Security Number:
Assuming he doesn't show up in the Social Security Death Index (deaths prior to about the 1960s are rarely in the SSDI), here are two other options:
a) Photocopy of his ...
7
The University of Iowa has a chart (AFVA 36-1) of AFSC's effective 31 October 1988. This may not help with AFSC's that had been retired long before (for example Strategic Bomber Pilot - 1235 - only has C [B-52], E [FB-111], N [B-1], and Z [Other] suffixes listed, so if you were a B-58 Hustler driver it's not on the chart).
http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/cdm/...
7
They certainly could be a match, but since the two signatures are from a person (or people) of a similar age from a similar place it may just be the way handwriting was taught in the schools of that place and time.
As this is a common name, you can use that to your advantage by collecting a large number of samples of the signature. An Ancestry (or ...
7
The Israel Genealogy Research Association (https://genealogy.org.il) is in the process of indexing marriage and divorce records from the British Mandate period. You can search their database and see all the information for free, but it requires one to register on their site first. Viewing the actual marriage certificate requires membership in the ...
7
Your mention of missing persons in the 1850's means I could guess that you suspect he was born in the 1840's or slightly earlier, but it is unclear.
As you don't mention the name we're unable to help with suggesting alternatives. For example, the Monair family I'm researching is often transcribed as McNair, and McNae is sometimes McRae. It's not just ...
7
Ancestry has "UK, Navy Lists, 1888-1970" - these include "multiple volumes of the Navy List, the Royal Navy’s official published list of officers." There are 4 records for your father (1941, 42, 44 and 1945 - I'd guess he's in the 1943 as well but it's not indexed?)
p.1639 of Volume II of the July 1945 list (I don't know how often the paper versions were ...
7
The German Red Cross also maintains a WWII tracing service that works independantly from the ICRC services. They have their own records (I confirmed this via email), which indicates that they may even in some cases have information that the ICRC doesn't.
7
Update: new information on birth place
Let’s sum up what we know for sure:
You had a great-grandfather with the surname Rebholz
What we assume:
He was born in Sigmaringen
What is unknown:
his first name(s)
his birth date
his place and date of death
You are lucky, the birth and other records from the Standesamt Sigmaringen are available online from ...
7
The easiest way is to make a record request so that St. Louis can pull the record and scan it for you.
YouTube recording of Day 3 of the 2014 Virtual Genealogy Fair. See session 13, "Discovering Your Family’s Past in Military and Early Veterans Administration Personal Data Records and Selective Service Records" by Stephen A. Smith, Daria Labinsky, & ...
7
This means that he was retained (“zurückgeh.” = “zurückgehalten”) by a neutral country until now (“bish.” = “bisher”), as this list of abbreviations for the navy lists suggests. Now he is prisoner of war (“krgef.” = “kriegsgefangen”). “A” could indicate that this information was received from a foreign country (“Ausland“), as “A.N.” is elsewhere used for “...
7
The uniform is from the time around World War I (see, for instance, World War 1 Uniforms and US Enlisted Uniforms 1900 - 1918: Part 2: Uniform Patterns (Enlisted) Army).
The uniform style doesn't indicate the branch of the U.S. Army.
The button is called a "collar disc", and the "48" is a unit number, either a regiment or battalion depending on how the ...
7
You should be very, very, careful with this. My alarm bells are set off, because despite the emphatic denial of your father's second cousin, he is still a strong candidate. He could know and not want to tell anyone. Or he might be the father and not know and never was told by the mother, or maybe the mother didn't even know that he specifically was the ...
7
According to the article Mississippi and the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848 by Sam Olden, posted on the website Mississippi History Now (an online publication of the Mississippi Historical Society), Company C was the Vicksburg Southrons.
See also this page at Tufts, which is a digital version of: Colonel Charles E. Hooker, Confederate Military History, a ...
7
I can confirm that the text on both cards is indeed in German. Your first card is dated to 1920, the second one seems to have been stamped by the post office in 1917. As far as I know Sütterlin was only developed in 1911 and taught in schools from 1915 on, so the people writing these cards would have learned another form of Kurrent rather than specifically ...
7
This article describes the incident:
http://aircrewremembered.com/roy-arnold.html
and leads me to search for "Oblt Walter Schneider" which comes up with another website or two.
https://airpages.ru/eng/lw/fw190a1_1.shtml
(Fw 190A-1, Werk Nr 027, "Yellow 1" of JG 26, of Oblt Walter Schneider in November 1941, which showed nineteen victory ...
6
Your ancestor, Colonel Charles Jay Foster was reported a retired jeweler at the time of his death. [See the earlier posted San Francisco funeral home reference]
He married Mina Bauer on Saturday, March 23, 1889, in San Francisco, California. Sausalito News, Friday, March 29, 1889, p. 3, c. 6.
The engagement was announced in October, 1888; Charles was ...
6
Just because your ancestor filled out such a card does not mean he actually served. Here's a quote from the documentation on this collection on ancestry.com:
Not all men who registered for the draft actually served in the
military, and not all men who served in the military registered for
the draft. This civilian registration is often confused with ...
6
I am going through this process at the moment. I am applying to the MOD for service records for my Great Uncle who was killed in action during WW2.
Follow this link. You then need to download the relevant forms and send them off to the department indicated within the forms.
It costs £30, but beware the records may not exist, as lots were lost during the ...
6
ETS is Expiration of Term of Service (usually in the US Army, it's discharge code 201 and used for enlisted men). It's typical for each term of service to be separate as you have to resign and re-up for each one. Actual extensions are typically done only by the government (as I think may have been done in the Sec 30 reference in 1914-1920 below)
So the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
