This is my exact family history through the maternal line. As far as has been told to me the paternal line on my mom’s side is well enough documented that there are actual email and snail mail relationships with the “old country” branch of the family in Germany (well part of it anyway). There are known soldiers but no known combat or service related deaths in the family history until my brother.
On my dad’s side, inspite of having an irish name, there is little or no Irish ancestry according to a popular dna analysis service and the family records are rather muddled.
My grand fathers were too young for WWI and to old for WWII. Before that my family was Jewish in Czarist territory. I don’t think anyone served.
My dad would have been eligible for Korea but worked as an engineer in aerospace so was exempt. I’m around eight years too young for Vietnam and I would have been medically ineligible anyway.
My father was still in high school when WWII ended. His three older brothers all went, but all survived. My father did a couple years in the Army during the Korean War but never left the states. Neither grandfather was in the military. One paternal ancestor was in the Civil War in a New York regiment and survived, and he was at Gettysburg. A maternal ancestor was in the Civil War and deserted in 1863, and I don’t think he ever left Arkansas, his home state. Another ancestor was in the Revolutionary War and survived, going on to be the State Librarian for New York. That is my sum knowledge of the military activities of all my ancestors.
On the contrary, they would have been forced to serve. Conscription into the Imperial Russian Army was mandatory for Jews. This involuntary impressment into Russian service was in fact a large motivator for many of them to emigrate to other countries.
I have a significant non-ancestor who died in combat in WWI. It was my paternal grandmother’s fiancé. Had he survived, there’s a good chance Grandma would not have met and married Grandpa, and I wouldn’t be here.
My great-great-grandfather died in the Civil War . . . from measles.
I have a great uncle who was shot down over Italy, but he survived. That’s the closest I get.
:eek:
I had a grandfather that served in the Spanish-American War. The unit never deployed that I can find. 1st Connecticut Volunteers.
He’s way down in Company D as the only artificer. Mechanics who worked on artillery, wagon, general engineering. Hinman L. Smith.
Two uncles were in WWII. One in a tin can in the Pacific manning a 5"/38. He was deaf as a stone. Other uncle flew transport aircraft for bigwigs. Couple of forced landings but nothing over water or enemy lines.
No direct ancestors that I know of, though one great-grandfather served behind the lines in the Crimean War before coming home and starting his family, and another had a career in the 19the century military in India and Ireland. In WW1 my father lost an older brother (died as a prisoner of war of the Turks) and a cousin on the Western Front, and a cousin in WW2 who was taken prisoner by the Japanese; my father himself was a POW for four years in Germany and Poland. But go back before that, and they were almost all ordinary labourers and the like who seem to have managed to avoid being press-ganged or inveigled into taking the King’s shilling.
In the nature of things, a high propotion of those who die in battle have no descendants, since they tend to be quite young when they die. The result of this is that it is easier to find people whose ancestors survived combat than people whose ancestors died in combat.
One of my four grandparents served in the British forces in the Great War, and two others in the republican forces in the Irish War of Independence, and one of those also served in the Irish civil war. Had any of them died in any of those conflicts I would never have been begotten.
I posted in the other thread, about a cousin who was shot down over France.
But not all of my relatives met their ends in the World Wars. Uncle H (actually Great-Uncle H, as he was my Dad’s uncle) managed to survive WWI, as a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was a signaller. I’m unsure which battles he participated in, but he definitely participated in the battles in Europe. He brought back a number of souvenirs, among them a couple of brass artillery shells (they’d been fired, so they are only shells), that decorate my fireplace to this day.
Uncle H was a great guy, but it was a bit of a surprise to find, when he stayed with us when I was 11 years old, that instead of coffee, he started his day with two shots of rye whisky. After that, he wanted coffee. Not the greatest role model, my Mom harruphed. “Hey, he was in WWI,” my Dad said, and that was that.
My Uncle N was on an HMCS ship in the Battle of the Atlantic, before the Americans got involved. He didn’t see much action, just because his ship didn’t see much action. He wanted to see some, and was excited about being posted to the Pacific Theatre after Nazi Germany fell–then, on his way there (through the Panama Canal, so family lore goes), his ship found out that the Americans had dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, and the Canadians’ services would not be needed. His ship returned home, to Halifax. Somewhere, I have the wire he sent from Halifax to my grandmother, saying that he was discharged, and would be home soon. He arrived home safely, became a civilian, and life went on.
My father was just too young for Korea, and on the old side for Vietnam, though he was in the Guard/Reserves. His father was over thirty, with a child, by the time we entered WWII, but drafted nonetheless in 1945. The war ended though before he was sent anywhere.
On my mother’s side, her father was nearly forty when the war came, and was not drafted.
Patrilineal great-grandfather was too old for WWI (born 1877, which suggests his father was too young for the Civil War. But I know very little about him, and even less about most other potential fighting forebears, until we get to my four or five times great grandfather, from somewhere on my mother’s mother’s mother’s side, of the Corps of Royal Artillery Drivers in His Majesty’s Royal Regiment of Artillery during the Napoleonic wars. Thanks for your service, Sir).
Unless some of them died back in the Old World, none for me. Grandpa was part of the battle group out with Enterprise when Pearl Harbor was attacked, father was deployed almost entirely stateside working on the Nike Hercules missiles. Two uncles served in theater, one in Korea, and one in most major US operations since the early 90s.
A great Uncle MIA (to this day) during the fall of Singapore.
Otherwise, despite a long tradition of military service and involvemet in multiple theatres of war in several conflicts, no one I know off has been killed. Wounded yes.
I only know from the 20th century, since it’s next to impossible for me to go back much further.
Neither my father or grandfathers fought. My paternal grandfather was six months too young to be required to register in 1917, and would have been temporarily deferred by the time of the registration because he supported my grandmother. He was too old for WWII.
My maternal grandfather should have registered, but was probably married, too.
My father was too young for WWII. He was eligible for Korea, but was married; and I was born before his number was called.
As I mentioned, my uncle (mother’s brother) died in WWII. He volunteered.
No other ancestor fought.
Reading that other thread, I was thinking that the closest I have is a great uncle (my grandmother’s brother) killed in WWII; neither of my grandfathers fought in the war, deferred for different reasons. I also had an older cousin who died in Vietnam. Those are the only relatives I know about.
I have no history of military service (that I know of) in my direct bloodline going back to at least pre-1900. My father was kicked to the back of the draft line for Vietnam due to a wonky toe. I have an uncle who served but he’s related via marriage. Neither grandfather served; I think they just hit an age bracket where they weren’t upper tier draft material during those times. None of my great-grandparents served that I’m aware of and prior to that, you go back to Europe and I lose track.
My grandfather served in France during WWI. He met my grandmother because her school set up a pen pal program where the girls wrote to Our Boys Overseas to keep them out of the hands of the mademoiselles. She wrote to him, he wrote back, eventually he asked if they could meet when he got home. They did, and married some months later.
I never met him - he died while my mother was pregnant with me.
My uncle served in WWII, but never overseas and was never in combat.
Regards,
Shodan
I did have an ancestor killed at Antietam, but let’s ignore that for a moment for a good story.
My great-grandfather fought in the Great War and was killed , or so it was told to my great-grandmother. What we discovered many years later from one of the men in his unit is that he never left the States. He was killed at Fort Dix after a card game where he cleaned out the other players and they decided he was cheating, so they decided to get their money back the violent way. We never knew if he was actually cheating or just had a good night.
My father survived WW2 unscathed, although Tokyo Rose once reported that his plane had been shot down.
Both my grandfathers survived WW1. Maternal grandfather was a telegraph operator. Not sure if he ever saw combat. Paternal grandfather was an engineer. He never talked about the war, but Dad said that he had some psychological scars from it.
My grandmother told a tale of a cousin who tried to dodge the draft in the Civil War by shooting himself in the foot. It got infected. Afterward, he was nicknamed “Peg-Leg”. (Grandma had a very slippery relationship with the truth, so I suspect that she either made that one up, or re-told someone else’s story as her own. But that one is too good to pass up.)
One of my ancestors was in the navy in the War of 1812. He died at sea, though not in combat. They shipped his body home in an alcohol barrel. Apparently, his shipmates thought very highly of him, if they were willing to sacrifice their grog ration for him. 
Lots of war stories in my family, but as far as I know, they all survived the actual fighting.