I love putting in-laws on my tree and my husband's tree, and really enjoy researching their lives and connections. If any were veterans, I especially want to honor their service to the country.
Last week, I was chasing some details on an in-law's family and found his Find a Grave memorial page.
The Find a Grave volunteer who manages this memorial page (and 28,000 other memorials) encourages users to transcribe obits and submit as suggested edits.
So I transcribed the in-law's obit, which included dates/details about his World War II military service, and I submitted it as a suggested edit. At the same time, I indicated that the man was a veteran.
One day later, the volunteer accepted my edits and also sent me the note shown at top of this blog post. "You have lots of Vet memorials that need your time. Time to concentrate on yours."
Even though I was a little taken aback at the slightly snarky tone of this volunteer's note, I took his advice. And I'm very glad I did!
Of course, I don't manage anywhere near as many Find a Grave memorials as this volunteer. Mine number under 700, actually, and many are folks (born in 1870s-1880s) whose headstones are in the same cemetery as ancestors in my family tree or my hubby's tree. Some of my memorials are for parents or children of in-laws who I added to Find a Grave in the course of my research.
Given the age of the folks on my Find a Grave memorials, I didn't expect to find too many veterans. Many are also married women who came to the United States as adults. So I also researched their spouses, fathers, and sons if linked. That helped up my count as I checked obits, military records, and other records.
So far, after researching about 335 of those whose Find a Grave memorials I manage, I've found 14 people who served in the US military! I'm moving alphabetically along my list and have reached the Ls. Where information was available, I listed the branch of the military, the war, and the dates of service. I expect to find another dozen or more as I continue through my list. (I'll keep updating the numbers in this paragraph!)
In the case of Morris A. Dworkin, I uploaded this application for a military headstone to add to his Find a Grave memorial when I set the indicator to V for veteran.
Now the little V shows next to the names of those who served in the military, as it does on my Dad's Find a Grave memorial page (excerpt below).
"Cemetery" is Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks genealogy prompt for Week 40.
