Searchable Databases

Or "Rednecks, Wars and Births, Deaths and Marriage"

by Uncle Hiram

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

It seems only natural to follow up on last weeks Memorial Day column with one about some of the databases you can use to locate your veteran ancestors.

I want to share with you can be used to search for Men killed in action in World War I, World War 2 and Korea. The Page is done by the American Battle Monuments Commission. The URL is http://www.usabmc.com/abmc4.htm. All you need to do to search the database is hit the link, pick the war you wanna search. Type in the surname of the person and viola up comes any information they have on that person. It will give you date of their death, the cemetery they are buried in and any medals they received.

I would also like to share with you is for the Vietnam War. The URL is http://www1.thevirtualwall.org/. Again all you do is go to the Search box (In this case a button on the bottom of the main screen) hit it, then enter the name you are looking for. The Virtual Wall site allows you to generate a report listing several key bits of information such as Name, Home of Record, birthdate, Rank, Tour beginning Date, Date of Death, and where the person died. A virtual goldmine of useful information.

And finally, I want to tip yall off to is the one that has been monopolizing my time for the last week and the reason this column is late (again). It is a searchable Database for Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces on Rootsweb for California and Texas. The URL for this Database (A Rootsweb Site) is http://searches.rootsweb.com/ They have several other searchable databases on this site including a database for World War I Draft Registrations.

I would strongly suggest everyone try out these three sites for searchable databases.

- Adios and Keep Smiling!

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