Named heart shield bible

[BattleOfTheBulge25]

I looked around on the website. It looks great! Would it be better for me to just get a membership to ancestry and research the many named wwii items I have. I’ve never used ancestry before but I have heard it is generally a good site for research of your ancestry no pun intended. How is ancestry for researching wwii and other military conflicts throughout the ages. I would like to see what would be better for me in researching multiple veterans items. I’d rather spend less and be able to find out more. Golden arrow seems to be very good with finding information on battles etc. would it be possible to find that information on ancestry?

[Rakkasan187]

Ancestry is alright for finding some basic information but you would be far better off reaching out to Geoff.. Ancestry does not have access to specific records that are maintained at NARA due to their military nature and in some cases classification. Morning reports and other sensitive information will not be on ancestry.

You may also want to consider what I suggested earlier and contact NARA. I attached the tutorial link on how to send records requests to NARA. They may have limited staff at this time but if you send in the request they will get to it eventually..

With that said the normal turn around for NARA to conduct research and send records information back is anywhere from 3-9 months. This is normal.. You have to understand that this information is being pulled by civilians.. Some like their jobs and do a great job pulling information, others are not.. Don't be discouraged by time it takes to get the records you request, that's part of NARA.. They have a huge task and few people to provide the services necessary. They are responsible for assisting veterans with records, next of kin requests for deceased veterans and many other requests such as researchers like us... so patience is a virtue..

NARA has some wonderful public access records from the American Revolution to the present day conflicts and they are constantly adding more records as they reach their "maturity" date for lack of better terms. The Military declassifies records at certain points after so many years after they have been deemed unclassified, much of the statute of limitations on some of these records is 50 years so WW2 records, Korean War records and early Vietnam records are available.

Also don't be surprised if after you send in your request to NARA you get a letter back stating that the records could not be found.. There was a fire at the records center in the 70s that destroyed millions of records, many of them WW2 records. Just keep trying. NARA ay send a request back to you for more information so that they can try to reconstruct the records the best they can with the information that you provide... The more information that you have to put on the application the better. Believe it or not NARA will also reach out to other organizations to find the data.. One of the reasons I mentioned to you to start local at the city municipal offices or libraries.

When Soldiers were being discharged at the end of WW2 they were advised or it was suggested to them to bring a copy of their discharge paperwork to their local town office to keep on record. One of the many reasons why records were done in triplicate was to ensure depth in case the Soldier lost his copy of his paperwork, he could go to the county court house or municipal building and request a copy... So even if NARA comes back and claims the records were destroyed in the fire there may still be information somewhere..

I only use ancestry as an initial starting point which in some cases has been enough for me to find the information I am seeking but again it is just a start point. FOLD 3 is another site dedicated to military records but most of what is on ancestry is also on FOLD 3 and if you join ancestry they will try to get you to join FOLD 3 as well..

Ancestry is not cheap, there are package deals and bundles which will decrease the price but once you join you may also discover that you will have to join other websites and pay them to get information. Newspapers.com is another site that you have to have a subscription and many of the newspaper articles that are on ancestry can't be opened unless you have the newspapers.com membership. You can see the image of the newspaper but when you try to open it, it will send you to the newspapers link..and without membership...again you can't read. In may cases the snapshot of the newspaper article is not what many are looking for and they are forced to purchase the membership to open the newspaper and search for the content you are seeking.

Ancestry is alright if you intend on doing genealogical research on your family and it has paid off for me. I have an international membership which entitles me to access European records as well as US records which is helpful when researching my wife's family who is from Germany, my family from Sicily, and England and Scotland.

Ultimately the choice is yours, if you are that interested in researching the items you have in your collection you will have to consider spending additional money on either membership at ancestry or other sites, requesting the records through NARA which could cost between $25.00 to $70.00 depending on what NARA researchers find, or hiring a private research company like Golden Arrow Research...

For this particular item I would reach out to Geoff. He may be able to locate more information about the APO and from there may be able to identify what unit Atkins was in.. Ancestry does not have this information. I have searched it before with no luck.

Can't really suggest anymore than what I already have said already about NARA.

Research takes time and effort and I will emphasize time again. Don't get frustrated if you can't find the answer immediately... stop research on this for now and pick up a new project, and maybe the answers you are looking for with the Bible will be found while doing some unrelated research on another item...

I was researching a Pearl Harbor Purple Heart medal that I have and when I sent my request to NARA they responded in about 2 months that the records I was looking for were signed out to a researcher and that once returned I would get the copies I requested. It took about 1 year to receive the records. So in the meantime while waiting for those records I started another research project which was completed about 6 months later...

Keep plugging away, your doing fine and remember that this research and other research is not a sprint but a marathon which may take a while but you will finish the race...

Feel free to reach out if you need some more help or suggestions on where to look...

Best regards

Smitty

[BattleOfTheBulge25]

Thank you for the advice. I will try save up a bit and get a few things researched at once from golden arrow. As far as I’ve heard there the best research company when it comes to military history. I will try to contact NARA to see if they have anything. Thank you for all the help

[Rakkasan187]

Glad I could help...

I would reach out to Geoff and ask him if he will do multiple projects.. I think he may charge individually for each request.. Contact him though and ask.. Each request that is submitted gets assigned one of his researchers so they may just focus on one item and not multiple requests.. but check with him to confirm...

Let us know if we can be of further assistance..

I have an advantage over many since I am a museum curator but I had to go through the learning process of how to conduct proper research just like you are right now.. but you'll do fine

Smitty