Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
Print
E-Mail
tool name
closeMonday, May. 25, 2009
State's WWI records searchable online
By Michelle Dupler, Herald staff writer
Scrutinizing 90-year-old military records has been a labor of love for about 60 volunteers across the state over the last 41/2 years.
About 48,000 World War I service statement cards that list information about Washington soldiers who served from 1917-19 have been added to the state's online digital archives, a searchable treasure trove of information for genealogists and family historians.
The digital archive is an online repository for public records that have long-term legal, historical or fiscal significance. The idea is to preserve records in a way that will be searchable for years to come, according to the archive's Web site.
Terri Huntley, volunteer coordinator working in the Secretary of State's Office, said most of the work of reading records and preparing data for online storage is done by volunteers from their homes.
Huntley or someone from the state's archive will photocopy the original records and send a packet off to a volunteer, who pulls out the pertinent information and types it into a spreadsheet. All of them work for free.
Tamlee McGary, a volunteer living in Basin City, said she became involved with the painstaking work of transcribing the service cards because she loves researching family history and wanted to give others the kinds of online resources she uses in her own searches.
"It was a fun way to get involved," McGary said. "I know how valuable records are that are online. Digital records are so much easier to research because you can type in something and it does the work for you. You can look for anything where that name appears. ... It's a wonderful way for people to get to know their families better and appreciate their sacrifices."
The World War I archive will tell researchers who search for a particular name the soldier's serial number, race, date and place of birth, unit assignments, rank and dates served.
They also can see where the soldiers fought and whether they were wounded or disabled.
"The great thing about having these veterans' records available is that thousands of families here in Washington and outside of our state can access them and learn more about a relative who served in World War I," Digital Archivist Kerry Barbour said in a written statement. "The information in these records will help shed light on what these soldiers experienced during the war."
McGary said sometimes as she typed records, she'd be captivated by an unusual name and start looking in the area for living relatives. She even called a few people to tell them what she had found about their ancestors.
"I thought about (the soldiers) a lot," McGary said. "I thought a lot of them were probably leaving a family. In hindsight, we know what happened in the war, but it was probably a lot different than they anticipated it would be. Probably some of them didn't come home. ... Those aren't just names on cards. Those are real people."
-- On the net: www.digitalarchives.wa.gov
* Michelle Dupler: 509-582-1543; mdupler@tricityherald.com
@Nyx.CommentBody@