How local families can unbury the past of veterans
Veterans Day presentation at historical museum
Maureen Elliott of Royal Oak is ready to show how people can preserve memories of their military veteran ancestors and discover new facts about them with research going back to the American Revolution.
Elliott of the Oakland County Genealogical Society is set to give a presentation at 7 p.m. on Veterans Day, Nov. 11 at the Royal Oak Historical Museum, 1411 Webster Road.
“I want to show people that they can easily do research about the veterans and ancestors in their families,” said Elliott, who is also editor of the “Acorns to Oaks” genealogical quarterly journal.
She became involved in the research about 40 years ago.
Elliott remembers years ago being at the National Archives in Washington D.C. with her late husband, Dennis, and gaining access to his great-great grandfather’s Civil War records.
“I held his enlistment papers in my hand and I was dumbfounded,” she said. “He was trying to get a pension” for serving in the Civil War.
Research can often penetrate the dark veil of time with factual
details.
While helping people do research, Elliott said she found out things about people that showed the particulars of their lives and appearance.
“I knew their hair color, their eye color, where their scars were and their medical history,” she said.
Typically, people come to Elliott knowing nothing about their ancestors from long ago. Her job is to work back from the person seeking the information.
Her husband, for example, had an uncle who was declared missing in action during the Korean War.
“It turned out he was killed in action,” Elliott said. “It’s interesting to see the new documentation that’s available now through the government and the Veterans Administration.”
Old newspaper articles can often help.
One of Elliott’s ancestors served in the Civil War when he was in his teens. She was unable to find any documentation on him until she found a newspaper article from the 1860s.
“He was from Ontario,” Elliott said. “An American paid him $200 to serve as his substitute in the Civil War. He was young and they made him a bugler.”
Over years of doing research about veterans and civil ancestors, Elliott has found that people have to occasionally be ready to face difficult facts.
“We sometimes find facts you may not have wanted to know about,” she said.
Over the sweep of history people are affected, as always, by their circumstances and their own inclinations, for good or ill. Some ancestors’ stories can reveal incidents of crimes, including murder and bigamy, or prison time for other criminal acts. There is also sadness in the past. In one instance an ancestor who descendants were told he had died of unknown causes turned out to have committed suicide.
Elliott found out one of her great grandfathers and his family were victims of the Highland Clearances in Scotland during the mid19th century. The clearances involved removal of people from the land to make way for the introduction of sheep farming, which was more profitable.
“My great grandfather and his family were among those called to a town meeting,” Elliott said. “They were all shackled and sent to Canada.”
Her upcoming presentation at the historical museum will focus on how to seek information on veterans from all wars the U.S has fought in. Elliott said she wants people to be open to whatever they may find.
“I’m going to show people how to research their veteran ancestors,” she said. “It brings that person to life again.”
Muriel Versage, curator at the Royal Oak Historical Society Museum, said Elliot has been a member of the society for years.
“She really knows about genealogical research,” Versace said. “And we have many veterans and veterans’ families who come to the museum.”