Genealogy Method: "What About 'Dead-Ends?'"

A guy wrote to me yesterday and gave me the Civil War enlistment dates for my great-grandfather.  Now I already have them, and from multiple sources.  I even have a photocopy of his military record that I ordered from the national archives.  I didn't need this information at all, but what was my reply to him? 

"May I please have the citation for the enlistment records you found?"  Just as if it was all new to me.

Why?  Why would I ask for that?!  Why would I appear to not know what I already know?  Because there must be no assumptions.  Because it might be a source I don't know about, and the source might have even more information.

He wrote me back and yeah, it was a source I already had.  So just like the other ninety-seven percent of the time, it went nowhere.  But I still have to ask!  There is that other three-percent.  If I want the most complete picture, I still have to ask.

Many years ago, I had a friend who owned a store that sold audio and video equipment.  Mostly televisions.  We were sitting at his desk in the showroom talking, and a couple walked in, and he greeted them with a friendly and audible wave; They made a trip around his store, not liking anything they saw, they started out the store door and he gave them another friendly audible wave.

I said, "I don't know how you can handle that?  Customer after customer, walking in and walking out without buying anything."  He said, "It is like this.  According to my data, every tenth customer that walks through that door makes a purchase.  You interpret that as ninety-percent rejections.  I choose to see each customer as ten-percent of a sale, even if they don't make a purchase."

Seeing the whole complete picture means incorporating the apparent "dead-ends" into the method, not just dismissing them.

Copyright © 2022 by Kevin W. Walker

Meme: "You Know You Are a Genealogist When. . . ."

                                             "You know you are a genealogist when. . . .

                                             Your cousin sends you twelve lists of cemetery 

                                              transcriptions and you get excited!"

Copyright © 2021 by Kevin W. Walker

A Reflective Essay about Family and Why Genealogy

I am one of those people who believes we are all genetically born with certain behavioral predispositions and predilections.  I still believe in free will!  I don't believe these born-with desires determine our choice and behaviors, they just influence them.

I was born with a profound appreciation and affection for family.  It is in my blood.  It is in my soul.  I have always loved visiting relatives, and this was noticeable even when I was very young, I couldn't wait to visit family, and didn't want to leave after visiting.  I was happy.  Everyone one else seemed happy.  The adults seemed happy.  The kids seemed happy.  I felt loved.

When I was little we were blessed to have my mom's parents and two sisters and their families living within driving distance of our home in northern California.  But since my Dad was a Nebraska transplant the bulk of his relatives were back in Nebraska.  He grew up in a family of nine kids and seven close cousins, and each of them having families of their own. So in the summer of 1968 we packed up the old blue Ford station wagon and drove the short 1677 miles from Fremont, California to Dix, Nebraska for a Walker family reunion.  I was in heaven, pure heaven.  There must have been forty of us, everyone was smiling, and laughing, and having a great time!

Late that evening, as my eyelids grew heavy, my Dad's cousin Bob Wistrom scooped me up into his arms and carried me to the car.  I started to cry.  Bob said "What's the matter?"  I said "I don't want to leave!"  Bob's eyes welled with tears and he dried the tears on my cheek with the back of his hand.  And we drove the long, long 2000 miles home.

This experience had a huge effect on me.  The value of family grew even more in my heart and never wavered.  But as time passed, things happened, things change, as they always do.  My Dad started with two brothers in California, but one passed, and the other moved to Arizona.  My Mom's family started out close, but they too began to spread out, chasing their own dreams, and their own predilections.  Even my parents and brother moved, and then, after growing up and marrying, so did I.  This was my curse -- no family close, anywhere.

But it did not stop.  Soon my grandparents' generation passed on.  Then my parents.  I had two kids, and then as is normal, they got married and had kids and moved.  And now I am the grandparent, and my curse continues.  I only see my immediate family once or twice a year.  And my extended family?  Well, we talk on Facebook.  That is about the extent of it.

"Kevin, why do you do genealogy?"  This is why -- to defeat my curse.  To fill my familial love tank.  I feel love for, and dare I say, even love from every ancestor I find.  I knew none of our ancestors' names, none of my family did.   My contemporary relatives were all getting the love they needed from each other, there was no pragmatic rationale to look back at their roots, beyond curiosity.

But I am different.  I am uncovering our ghosts, waking them up and giving them new life.  Finding their images, cleaning them off.  Telling their histories, both good and bad.  I can feel their familial love filling up my tank, as their names and stories, that were covered in decades and centuries of darkness, get to see the light of day.

My predisposition and predilection for family drives me to fight off a curse of familial loneliness.  I am selfish that way.  But I can sense the smiles of my long dead relatives, as they are remembered for whatever reason.


Copyright © 2020 by Kevin W. Walker

Thank You Grandpa

Keith Glenn Walker, 1894-1980

We were not sure what to think of you.  We really didn't --

• You were a shutterbug and took thousands of pictures of us and yourself, and the places you visited;
• You gave away to us ten times as many photographic prints as you kept even when we didn't ask for them;
• You always wrote the names and dates and sometimes places on the back of the pictures you kept;
• You wrote the names and dates and sometimes places on the backs of the photographic prints you gave to us;
• You wrote thousands of letters to your hundreds of relatives, even distant cousins; 
• You kept all the the letters from family you received, writing on the outside of the envelopes some form of identification of the person who sent it to you, "Beulah's daughter" or "my cousin" or whatever;
• You kept in a huge envelope every scrap of paper with a name and/or address and/or phone number and/or birthdate of a relative on it; 
• In your retirement, you traveled the country six months out of the year visiting relatives, talking to us, telling us about our family if we would listen; 
• And you kept taking more pictures of us

-- We didn't understand you.  You were sort of queer to do all that, not like everyone else at all who just ignore it.

But now, thirty-six years after you are gone, I get it.  You were wise beyond what we understood.  

Thank you.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

1/15/1910 "A Date That Will Live in Infamy"... for this genealogist

Custer County (NE) courthouse fire.

There goes all my third and fourth generation paternal vital records up in smoke.

But hey, at least I got a picture!


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

The "Responsibilities" of the Family Historian... Or Not... Or Maybe

I apologize in advance to my readers.  I usually form my thoughts clearly in advance, what I want to say and how I want to say it, before I sit down at my computer.  But this subject is so emotionally driven and heartfelt, I am not sure my mind is capable enough to separate it out into a rational syllogism.  So I am afraid this will be a bit stream of consciousness.

We are all aware that the ethical and responsible genealogist and family historian has any number of "responsibilities."  My gosh, the list seems endless -- cite your sources, use a proof standard, backup your data, stay organized, protect originals, preserve keepsakes, etc.  In the field there is a separate list -- tread lightly, be friendly and polite, ask for permission, treat gravemarkers respectfully, handle records carefully, etc.  But I want to move onto a third category of "responsibility," not even sure it is a responsibility, or whose responsibility it is?

I remember many years ago, the first time I found out an ancestor did not have a gravemarker.  It was a great-aunt I never knew.  My heart sank for her and I wondered what if anything I could do about it?  Was it my "responsibility?"  I think I am the only one that cares.

I found a cousin researching the same Dutton line as mine.  Where my branch went to central Illinois, his branch went to southern Illinois.  I noticed his are all buried in the same family graveyard.  Unkempt.  Weeds are overtaking it, stones have fallen over, and as the trees take over, I suspect in ten years it will be gone.  He feels helpless to do anything.  What would I do if they were my ancestors?  Would I do anything?

Over the last two decades I have discovered any number of broken stones and missing markers, not just for indirect relatives, but also for direct ancestors.  I have yet to lift a finger.

As regular readers here know I have embraced two causes.  First is the case of my aunt Dorothy whose ashes were abandoned by her husband in an apartment, and returned to the crematorium by the police, where they have sat now unwanted for almost seventy years. I am in the process of securing them and having them interred with her parents, my grandparents.  Second is the case of my 2xg-grandfather Henry Walker, Sr. who died in the Civil War and is buried in a National Cemetery under a marker that reads "Unknown."  Using government documents I have identified his grave, and I am working with my congressman to get that fixed.  But that is where my activism ends so far.  "Activism?"  Or is it "responsibility?"

There are practical considerations.  One of the broken stones of a direct ancestor is my 3xg-grandfather, and on the other side of the family tree is a 3xg-grandmother in a cemetery that is unkempt and about to be swallowed up by urban sprawl.  No offense to my 3xg-grands, but I have thirty-two of you!  Where do I begin?

Now if my family was large enough I could form a family association where we all contribute a little to make a lot, which could grow and become enough to get some things done with!  But alas, I do not have a large family.  And I am kind of the only one interested in these things, or cares.  Most of my family consider me an oddity.  The only one who feels any "responsibility" to the dead.

All my life I have sought to treat others the way I would want to be treated in the same situation, I am nowhere near perfect, but I try.  And as weird as it sounds, it is also across generations, including the deceased.  "Absurd" you say, "They are dead and gone, they don't care."

But I care.  I feel responsible to do what I can.  And maybe that is the answer.  I am not perfect, and I do not live in a perfect world.  Maybe my "responsibility" is to do what I can.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

Family Heirloom -- School Hall Pass

Our family is lacking of family heirlooms but I am trying to fix that.  My still-living father taught math at the same middle school for thirty-four years, retiring in 1992.  This was his class hall pass.  It is about eight inches long.  Not easy for a truant to forge.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

OH MY GOD! Genealogy Gold!!!!!

My stepmom was going through her storage and found a cassette tape of my eighty-three year old grandfather telling our family history, three years before he died!

This was twenty years before I started genealogy.

I am shaking.  I will digitize it immediately and then make a transcript.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

My Ancestral Birthplace Chart - Quite a Patchwork

Last week it was all the rage by my fellow Geneabloggers to create color-coded ancestral birthplace charts.  I finally got around to doing mine.  What I noticed primarily are two things --

First, mine is a lot less uniformed and more colorful than most everyone else's.  As someone who prizes roots, I don't think that is a good thing.  My ancestors it seems were always moving.  Other bloggers noted that anomalies in colors/places on a chart might be caused by a person not living where they were born.  But that is not my case at all.  My family was indeed on the move out of state with almost every generation.

Second, it is now very easy to see how I could move back here to Illinois and discover deep roots from both sides of my family.  That would not be possible anywhere else within the illustrated generations except in Pennsylvania, and even then it would be on a much smaller scale.

I still consider Nebraska my ancestral home although I have never lived there, I have so many Walker relatives who still do. I imagine if my mother's family had come straight from Kansas to California, my affection would be just as strong for Kansas.

My father and both his parents called Nebraska home.  My mom's mother called Kansas as home, my mom's father said the same of Arizona, and my mom considered California home.

Top State Relationships to Me
100% California
100% Nebraska
75% Illinois
62.5% Kansas
50% Arizona
all others below fifty percent

Very interesting and enjoyable exercise.  I hope ideas for similar exercises come forward.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

One Good (Genealogy) Deed Deserves Another

Regimental History of the 33rd Illinois Infantry, published 1902.

I have said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand more, this blog pays me back.  Distant cousins or even complete strangers, for one reason or another Googling an ancestor's name find me, and out of the selfless generosity of their hearts they offer to share original documents, photographs, research, and heirlooms with me.  It just makes sense when the opportunity arrives that I make an effort to pay it forward.

As regular readers here know I have deep ties to the 33rd Illinois Infantry Regiment from the Civil War.  My 2xg-grandfather died under its banner, his brother in law, my 2xg-uncle rose from sergeant to Captain in its service, both these men behind my father.  Yet ironically, I also had two 2xg-uncles behind my mother also serving in the 33rd Illinois!  Who would have known?!  My mom from Arizona and my dad from Nebraska, met in California to marry and conceive me.  But they each had ancestors serving at the same time under these same Illinois regimental colors.  But I digress.

So it just made sense if I could get my hands on a copy of the published regimental history I should do so.  For the 33rd Illinois that book is History of the Thirty-Third Regiment Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, 22nd August, 1861, to 7th December, 1865, by Virgil Way and Isaac Elliott, published 1902 in Gibson City, Ill by The [Regimental] Association.  I was truly blessed.  This book is over 290 pages, loaded with pictures, rosters, personal accounts of regimental actions, and official accounts of the regiment.  My ancestors are cited repeatedly, and one, the Captain, even contributed a chapter on the history of the company under his command.

Title page. Remember to click to enlarge. 

With the book being out of copyright, digital copies were easy to come by online, Internet Archive had one, Google Books, Hahti Trust, and even the State of Illinois website.  But this was important enough to me I wanted to buy a hard copy.  The problem is the darn hard copies are apparently in demand, and the lowest price I could find anywhere was $175.  I had nothing but time so settled in and waited for a good deal to appear.  Finally a copy appeared on eBay and the seller was asking the going price of $175.  So I decided to low ball him an offer and surprisingly, he took it!  I was elated!

When the book arrived it had an envelope glued to the inside:

And inside the envelope was a card:

Luke Dickerman served in Company A of the 33rd Illinois alongside both my 2xg-grandfather and his brother in law, my 2xg-uncle the Captain.  But the uniqueness of this does not stop there.  First off, the guy lied about his age to get in and was only sixteen years old.  Second, he rose to the rank of sergeant!  Third he was a primary source for the regimental history, an a few of his personal exploits are recorded.

And now I have one of his presentation copies of the book??  Hmm.

I want the book, okay?   If not this copy, then a different one.  I made the decision I would try to track down a descendant of Luke Diskerman or J.H. Dickerman, preferably direct, to give the card and envelope to, and offer to sell the whole book to them at the replacement value (or for a replacement if they could do better).

I Googled for someone qualifying, but I had little luck.  I sent private messages to individuals on Ancestry.Com weeks ago, and still have not heard a reply.  If after some time I strike out, I always have the option of making the offer to an indirect descendant.

In the meantime with this article I set the wheels in motion by asking my blog to lure a Dickerman descendant to me.  So go to work my little blog, do your job.  But instead of giving to me, it is time for me to give away.  I have nothing but time.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

Friday Funny: Tracing My Tree

I started out calmly, tracing my tree,

To find if I could find the makings of me.

And all that I had was Great-grandfather's name,

not knowing his wife or from where he came.

I chased him across a long line of states,

And came up with pages and pages of dates.

When all put together, it made me forlorn,

Proved poor Great-grandpa had never been born.

One day I was sure the truth I had found,

Determined to turn this whole thing upside down.

I looked up the record of one Uncle John,

But then I found the old man to be younger than his son.

Then when my hopes were fast growing dim,

I came across records that must have been him.

The facts I collected made me quite sad,

Dear old Great grandfather was never a Dad.

I think someone is pulling my leg,

I am not at all sure I wasn't hatched from an egg.

After hundreds of dollars I've spent on my tree,

I can't help but wonder if I'm really me.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

5/22/2015 Genealogy Road Trip

Ralph examines closely the marker next to Aaron's grave.  Note the stones on Aaron's marker to show we visited.

My son Ralph and I decided to make another research trip down to Woodford County, where by sheer coincidence so many of my ancestors behind both my parents resided.

Our first stop were two pieces of property in Montgomery township that were owned and lived on by my 3xg-grandparents McKee.  The first one we went to had some interesting visuals like a decades old fence surrounding some weeds and an atrium that leads to nowhere.  I approached the property owner, introduced myself, explained what we were doing there and asked if he had anything of interest to us?  He said he didn't, but I am not sure.  My son Ralph said I did fine, but I don't think I did a good job of expressing my reasons and what I might be interested in seeing.  But you live and learn.  The second piece of property had nothing to offer, there was nothing there.  My research says their residence was on the first piece of property anyway.

We then went to the county building in Eureka, the county seat.  We went to the County Clerk's office, and got my 2xg-grandmother Louisa Dutton's three wedding licenses.  That went real fast.  The lady knew exactly what she was doing.  The Clerk of the Circuit Court's office was not as smooth and required researching, but we got it going and done.  I had hoped to look at the actual dockets -- touch the same documents my ancestors touched.  But to do that you have to give them at least a day's notice.  I didn't know.  So I worked from microfilm which was not as good.  But I made a lot of copies of the probate records for my 2xg-grandfather Henry Walker and my 3xg-grandfather Aaron Walker, and it gave me a lot of information to research and play with.

Off to 3xg-grandfather Norman Dutton's homesite.  It is a cornfield.  Nothing there.  But we wanted to see it.  And I hope some day to come back with a metal detector.

On to beautiful downtown Metamora (population 3,616) where we found the block that Aaron and Henry owned and where they had their cobbler shop.  Old houses there now, likely from the 1930s.  My ancestors lived there from the 1840s to 1860s.

We ran to Subway, and grabbed lunch.  I called the sexton for the Oakwood cemetery and we agreed on a time to meet and headed out there.  Ralph and I found the Dutton family plot and put rocks on the markers to show it had been visited.  Then we headed over to Aaron's grave and waited for the sexton.  He arrived, he was an older gentleman, farmer, very nice and accomodating.  There is a stone marker next to Aaron's grave with the initials "A.W." (as in "Aaron Walker") and we are looking to solve its story.  I think it is a footstone that got misplaced when they transferred all the graves from the original cemetery site to this one.  But since we are still trying to locate the grave of my 3xg-grandmother, Aaron's wife Submit Walker, it is a question that keeps coming up.

The sexton and I looked at the platte maps they did not help solve it.  The maps appear to only list the names of the owners of the plots and not the graves or burials.  We discussed the length of sexton's research which he did the night before, looking through all the records, and was as thorough as anyone could expect.  No record of her there.  We put rocks on Aaron's marker to show it had been visited, drove around the cemetery a little bit looking at markers for other distant relatives, then left for home.

Now, this might sound like a unproductive trip.  But it wasn't!

Reportedly when Thomas Edison was struggling to invent the incandescent light bulb. He was told he had "failed 6000 ways."  He answered, "I have not failed 6000 ways!  I found 6000 ways that don't work!"

That is what this researching is like.  These were logical places to look for records of my ancestors, but they were not fruitful.  So you keep looking.

In sum, it was NOT an unproductive trip.  I knew I would be getting those papers at the county courthouse, and that alone was worth the trip.  And I have seen the platte maps and been assured by the sexton he has looked in all the databases for Submit and did not find her.  Checking those out was an accomplishment.  I can cross those off the list in my search.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

Don't Wait

When my grandparents died, they had thousands of pictures, not just of them and their three daughters, but of their relatives and ancestors.  My aunt who was the executrix of the estate, painstakingly went through them dividing the pictures up between herself and her two sisters.  However at the time, with no one interested in family history, she kept for herself any pictures that lacked duplicates, and where there were duplicates, she kept the ones that had names and dates on the back.

I inherited one of the incomplete sets from my mother.  And eventually got sucked into this hobby we call genealogy.  Seeing my interest, my aunt vowed to get me the complete set of pictures with the names and dates and single copies.  For over ten years she intended.  They were in her storage locker and she would just need to get out there to get them.  I negotiated -- I only need to scan the ones I don't have and copy the names and dates from the others.  I will return them!  Just let me get the names and dates!!  I will pay for the shipping, I will do everything.  For over ten years this went on.  Toward the end she even decided her kids were not interested in them, she will just give them to me because they mean so much to me.

"The end?" Yup.  She contracted a fast moving cancer and was gone quickly.  She never let her kids know her desires with the pictures.  I tactfully pleaded with my cousins.  But it is apparently a loss.

Heartbreaking, so much heartbreak.  Don't make this mistake.  Don't wait.


Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

What's In a Name?

My second cousin twice removed Levi from Nebraska decided to have our surname tattooed on his back.  His grandmother Orpha Walker told him, "You can't deny that name now."

Building on the work of others and my own, I can trace my surname back eight generations, all confirmed with y-DNA.  I have found heroes and pariahs.  I have found the good and the bad. I have found the practical and the principled.  I have found presidents and felons.  But most of all I have found just average people doing the best they can, most not looking to make a place in history for themselves.

What's in a name?  What's in your name?  What you make of it.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

My Genealogy Laptop

Like most of us I wanted something digital to work on when I go to libraries, courthouses, museums, family history centers, conferences, society meetings, etc.

I thought about a Chromebook.  But I just could not be sure I would have WiFi everywhere I go.  I have an ASUS Transformer Tablet with attachable keyboard, and that is what I started with.  But the keyboard is tiny and I have fat fingers.  Everytime I went to hit the space bar I would miss and hit the touchpad, closing the window I was working in.  And if I wanted to use my flatbed scanner it would not work because the tablet was Android.

Here is my compromise, and old 14.1 inch Dell, with five-year old technology.  It can be had for $100 on the refurb market.  A slower quad-core processor and a smaller hard drive.  It came with Vista loaded, but I put Windows 7 on it.  I am going to do one thing and one thing only with it -- genealogy.  It has WiFi.  My flat-bed scanner will work with it.  And I will only keep a working family file on it, not my perfectly researched and sourced one I keep at home.

(Click image to enlarge.)

I went ahead and customized it with custom decals, including the principle surnames I am researching.  It looks cool, but I am not sure it is a good idea?  The possibility is I will run into others researching the same surnames.  But with false leads distracting me from my work, that could be bad more than good.   We will see.

Anyway, if you see this computer when you are out and about where family historians and genealogists congregate, come up and say hi.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

Hear the Earth Rumbling? A Brick Wall Falls!

After more than TEN years looking, I have FINALLY found the gravesite of my 2xg-grandfather Henry Martin Walker, Sr.!  He is apparently interred in an unmarked grave at Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans. (The recorder got the initials wrong in the above record book.)

There are a lot more details I need to gather before updating this blog with a proper post; Including calling the cemetery superintendent's office tomorrow to confirm the record.  There is no listing for any of the men from the trainwreck on any public National Park Service database.  Does the NPS not include men in unmarked graves? 

But this news was way too big for me to not shout it to the world! 

Genealogy Happy Dances all-around!

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

When Genealogy Records become Family Treasures

So much of my public genealogy is done as "cousin bait."  This very blog included!  I have documented how it has rewarded me, as both genealogists and non-genealogists find my blog with search engines, connections are made, research is sent to me, family records, some in my ancestor's own handwriting.

One of the cousins I discovered by continually crossing paths researching the same family lines, is Tony from Arizona.  Tony introduced me to the records of his grandmother Jennie (Hall) Long (1879-1968) who was my great-grandaunt and a family historian in her own right!

And so here is where we cross the line.

I emailed Tony to find out what great-aunt Jennie had on on her great-grandfather Joseph Hall of New Hampshire?  There are a few and I am trying isolate specifically which one is our ancestor.  He sent me this --

-- A copy of aunt Jennie's notes in her own writing.  Now keep in mind my great-grandaunt was born in 1879 and died in 1968.  How old is this?  At least fifty years.  Maybe a hundred.  And look at the words on the page.  She called her granduncle Israel "Uncle Billy."  My 3xgreat-granduncle Israel Woodbury Hall was nicknamed "Billy."  How would I have known that if it wasn't for this genealogy record?

We have crossed the line where a family history document has become a family treasure.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

Tuesday Tips: "How To DNA" Website

A brand new blog has been created that is dedicated to multimedia (videos and audios) on how to do genetic genealogy!  Visit it here -- http://howtodna.com/

Copyright © 2014 by Kevin W. Walker

Tuesdays Tip: Your Family Tree Explained (video)

Copyright © 2014 by Kevin W. Walker

Mystery Monday -- Can you solve this research riddle? NARA Record where it does not belong!

My wife's grandfather Carl Gastone Casattas was born 26 Oct 1894 in San Francisco, California, and died 9 Sept 1970 in Santa Cruz, California.  In between he resided for a long time in Oakland, Alameda, California.

Since he was born almost three decades following the end of the Civil War, imagine the surprise when we found this Index Card in the Civil War Pension file at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  NARA was surprised too!  They said it did not belong and had no idea what it was doing there.  (They could not tell us where it properly belonged so they said it would be returned to the Civil War Pension file.)

Keep in mind we can find no record of him having military service, although he was a member of various veterans groups.

What does it say?  What does it mean?  Click to Enlarge --

UPDATE: We found his draft registration in the "Old Man's Registration."

UPDATE 2: We have since learned he was a member of the Coastal Artillery Corps (C.A.C.), stationed in San Francisco.

UPDATE 3: The July 12, 1973 fire at the St. Louis National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) destroyed approximately 80% of Army personnel records from 1 Nov 1912 to 1 Jan 1960.  This could explain why we can find no record of his service.

Copyright © 2014 by Kevin W. Walker