Week End Chat...All Members Invited!!! Nov 11-13, 2016

Question

This is an ongoing "Chat" post that can be added to throughout the weekend.  All members of WikiTree are encouraged to join in, especially first-timers!

 

Hi Gang!

 

Veterans Day Edition- Pay Tribute to Your Ancestors Who Fought For Our Freedom: Post a Pic!!!

 

Say Hello and introduce yourself... where are you from and what are your interests?

 

Leaders, Mentors, Greeters, Pilots - What tips can you share with us today?

 

What improvements can we make?

 

What do you enjoy most about WikiTree?

 

Do you have any stories to share about famous or notorius ancestors?

 

What projects are you involved in, and how are they going?

 

What's the weather been like in your neck-of-the-woods?

 

... anything that you want to talk about!

 

 

Post answers here, comment on answers, up-vote things you like or agree with and have fun!  To receive notice when future Chats are posted, add Weekend_Chat to the list of Tags you follow.  You can edit your list by clicking on "My Feed" on G2G, then click to "add or edit". 

Comments

Hello to all and Happy Veterans Day.

My name is Blaire Howell Christman and I am a native Floridian (Fort Myers). It is a beautiful morning at 68 degrees and lots of sunshine.

My g grandfathers both served in the Civil War. My grandfather served in WWI. My father served in WWII. My uncle served in the Korean War. My brother served in VIetnam. And my son served in S. Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

My father, who served in WWII, often told us about his time over in Casablanca, French Morocco, Africa. While there (1943) he was given the opportunity and privilege to prepare meals for the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was to dine with the Commanders and troops. Of course, at that time, the Presidents trip was kept a secret, but it is now known as the Casablanca Conference (Code name SYMBOL). My father needed help from his crew and his buddies arranged to fly to NY to obtain different foods that my father would use to prepare the President's favorite meals. It was a very successful event, but one which my father and the others were not able to talk about for many years.

Here is a picture of my grandfather and 3 of his buddies from 1917 in their uniforms for WWI. My grandfather is the 2nd from the left.

https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/f/fe/Howell-5633-6.jpg

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My brothers are Vietnam era vets. One served 3 tours, and the other went to Germany due to the Sullivan act. In my father's direct linage, not counting the cousins or uncles who may have served, they are the first to serve in the military of the established government.

Daddy was classed as what would be called as 4F. He had an enlarged heart.

His father, Cleve, didn't serve, he would have been a teenager b. 1885 at the time of the Spanish American War and no record of draft for WW1. And he died in 1916 of malaria.

Grandfather Levi, was only about 12 when the CW broke out. 3 brothers and 4 cousins joined the confederacy

GGF Burgess was too told for the CW.and no Military record has been found for him. Altho his brother William did have service in the Indian Wars before that. A descendant of Williams joined a Society on that.

No war record has been found the Thomas Jester who would only have been of age for the War of 1812. His brother Levi, served in the RW and was declared Enemy of the State/Crown as he fought for the rebellious Colonists.

One of these days I'll complete the list of Cleve's brothers to see if any had WW1 service.

On my Mom's side, I know her mother's brothers were in WW1. If any were in the CW, they were confederate.

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Ok, popped in for a quick chat.  We are moving to Rhode Island, we rented a house and move in on Dec 5th.  Now to reduce 3800 sq ft to 1400 sq. ft.  Can we do it?

Also, I thought this was interesting for detailed genealogists.

http://kfor.com/2016/11/11/twins-born-as-daylight-saving-time-ends-cause-rare-age-twist/

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I have two items of special interest to me in relation to Veterans Day, both in connection with WW1:

First, my mother's oldest and only brother and the firstborn in the family, [[Layman-293 | Louis Moomaw Layman]] (aka Louis Maurice Layman, enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in December 1914 and was killed near Ypres, Belgium in August 1916, before the US ever entered the war.  That seems so sad, especially since he came from a long line of pacifist Dunkards.

Second, my father, [[Prickett-119 | Minter Jackson Prickett]], got to France in August 1918 and almost immediately had to be operated on for a hernia, which was done in a French army hospital in Lyons..  He was an excellent story-teller and I have a great letter he wrote home right after the Armistice (by which time he had recovered) describing his experience in the hospital. I've got it scanned into my computer and would post it on his profile but I haven't been able to locate it. :-( 

Pat

Answer 1

Happy Week End to All!

I hope everyone had a great & productive week on Wikitree.

Today is Veterans Day & also marks the end of The Great War (WWI).

In honor of all those who served .....post a pic or two of family members that served in the armed forces.

Here is a pic of my dad in WWII with his B 29 bomber crew on Guam in 1945 , a pic of my uncle in Vietnam in 1968, a pic of my cousin at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944 & a pic of my father-in-law on the beach in Korea in 1952.

Have a great week end!

Comments

Great Photos!

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Thanks for sharing your wonderful photos!

Answer 2

I've been having fun this week working on the profiles in my watchlist.  Since I want to get my 2nd 1000 contribution badge this month, I decided to do a better job of citing census records.  I got a couple of useful hints and figured out some on my own and have been adding citations from Ancestry.com as well as links to the Ancestry pages (though I realze many people can't use them as they don't have subscriptions; though just the census subscription wasn't too expensive last I looked.  Anyway, I'm working on "Bs" and "Cs" and have over 400 contributions for the month so far.  I do get more than one contributions for each added source as I save after every source so I can make sure there aren't any errors and sometimes I do have to make corrections.  

The weather here in Tempe, Arizona is nice this time of year,  so the snowbirds should start arriving soon.

Comments

You do know that FamilySearch is free???

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Of course, but I like Ancestry.com as far as finding censuses and I want to go through the list first  and I'll work on FamilySearch the next time around. I'm not an anti-business genealogist, not that I have tons of money joining sites.   .

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LOL!! Sure you'ill get back to them!!!  I remember when ancestry was free. But since then, I've seen so many trees carried over from there to here, that are in error and without being a member, I can't see how to sort it.  I joined Wikitree because a PM had parts of my line wrong. And that same tree that I sorted out here has been repeated at several other sites.  I am working between here and FStrees trying to keep the linages straight and cross-referencing FSTrees and WT ids. I ain't even out of the As yet.

I have no trouble finding census at FS.

Answer 3

And a greeting to you all on Veterans day as well ... I'm a veteran but no real exciting stories ... drafted towards the end of the Viet Nam war ... went to OCS and then to Korea and the DMZ ... about three years total.

This AM (4:30 or so) a local Veterans group was out, as always, driving up and down the streets ringing a bell ... just gets my heart.

Answer 4

Its been a busy day for me doing various Veterans Day activities. 

1. Went to a nursing home to honor a Korean War female veteran. 

2. Participated in a ceremony honoring veterans in our county to include honoring our Vietnam Veterans, giving them a "50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War" Commemoration pin. 

3. And finishing up going to the local senior citizens center as part of our chapter Honor Guard in which we presented and posted the colors (The US Flag, The POW Flag, and the Tennessee State flag)  

In between all that enjoyed a great meal at "Texas Road House" for lunch that was free to all military veterans!!!  

Last Sunday we did our "Veterans Day parade" which I marched with our brothers and sisters from our local area. It was an honor and I even made it in the local paper!!!

So before I end this post, let me thank all those who served, and remember all those who gave their all for their country. I know we have alot of family members who served in the various wars and have been honored. I hope we continue to do so adding the various categories showing their service and military awards and decorations. 

I would like to honor my ancestor Augustus Barry, Medal of Honor Winner:  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Barry-1904

Dorothy Barry, retired Army (1968-1988)

Comments

Thank you for telling us about your Veterans Day Activities. Great to hear about your various events......

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Thanks Chris, appreciate that!!

Answer 5

I did not do anything special for Veterans Day but on Sunday we are going on a short family trip, until Tuesday, to spend the time with a family member who is being deployed for his 5th time with the National Guard. Other than that I have been packing to move and working on profiles on my watchlist.  The final occupancy inspection for our new home is scheduled for Monday so if I seem AWOL for the next couple of weeks it is because I am going to be busy moving.

Answer 6

Hello All,                                                                                                           Have been away for the past 2 weeks on holiday. Coming back to dealing with the "stuff" that accumulates whilst one is away. Not to mention the washing..............

Though I would just do a short piece for Weekend Chat, have a number of avenues to follow up. The Grisedales  in Canada  for one and local connections for Brightlingsea, Essex, England. Plenty to keep me occupied.

Have a good week everyone.

Answer 7

Thank you to all the Veterans out there for your service!

I've been busy this weekend working on quilt blocks. I had 7 to do and I'm now down to 2 not done. :) Totally excited. I've been putting the images of the blocks and the other blocks cousins have done into a digital quilt to see how it'll look and it's looking AMAZING! :) I can't wait for others to see it at the reunion in the summer and raffle it off. Secretly hoping I win it. LoL

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!