Memorial Day 2021

TL;DR -- Memorial Day started with a special focus but became much broader. We want to take that even further to all conflicts on this side of the pond. Before the 250th event, we supported the Crown during the time of the Colonies. Every year, we will have activity that relates to remembering those who died during a military conflict. 

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No excuse, but we finally did our first post regarding Memorial Day in 2019. Then, we did another post last year as we faced an uncertain future. This is our third of a regular series. 

First, a recap.

• 2019's post - two years ago, we had been researching a part of the family by trying to identify and locate all of the siblings in one generation. While doing this work, we found out that one of the sisters had married a Scotsman who served in the U.S. Army during the Civil War. Too, he was buried at the veteran's section of the Saugus cemetery. FindAGrave gave his Massaschusetts unit but had left his birth and death information blank. So, we went to look and found information about his wife. Using WikiTree, we filled in records for these two linking them to FindAGrave record for the husband: Walter A Ingalls with links to his wife and his daughter. Now, also, at her FindAGrave record we include information and a link to her WikiTree profile. Her mother was a Sanborn (see post today on a relative who was out at a Treaty signing in Oct 1865). We still need to research Walter further. At the WikiTree profile of her father, we have information about her siblings, some of whom have their own profile. 
  
• 2020's post - last year, we finally got to looking at Greenlawn as well as Harmony Grove. Dr. Frank (see Veteran's Day post, 2019) is buried with family members (Ann's grandparents, aunts, uncles and others). Too, we had been looking at barriers to the western movement in terms of terrain. Later, we specifically considered how rivers were obstacles as well as being modes of transportation. We mentioned that the scope of the holiday had changed to include the Revolution. 

Now, this year, we have done much more research related to the centuries and the changes that they brought. That included getting more familiar with New France from which came lots of the land in the middle of the country and in the west. But, New Spain was there, too. The earlier post today looked at some New England presence. Formerly, we were looking at the trappers and mountain men as being early which is true in the far west. But, at the frontier's start, considering that it moved west as people came into the region, there were New Englanders getting the new land organized. St. Louis was the western point for this type of activity. 

At the same time, we have been looking at the conflicts with New France where the officers of the American Revolution were taught the military trade as they supported the Crown. Then, we had the major conflicts of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the WWI. However, there were many other battles and skirmishes which were under the Indian Wars, the War with Mexico which gave us Texas, and the conflict with Spain. All of these campaigns had casualties. 

We want to include them in our Memorial Day work. 

U.S. Military History (Wikipedia)

About not having this theme until 2019, the thing is that there is a lot of data to wade through, historical and family-based material to handle, plus the sheer size of these endeavors in manpower, costs, material, and a lot more. 

A day of the year might be useful for administrative purposes in terms of memory, but we will be looking at all of this throughout the year. 

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With regard to Memorial Day 2021, we are prompted by the blog, Streets of Salem, to look at a work that identified all of those who were from the Salem area and who served during the Civil War. 

• Salem Soldiers at Andersonville - the post looks at the book and pulls out the names of those who were at the Confederate prison. Google has a copy of the book: Patriots of Salem, Roll of Honor. As we peruse the book, we will look for individuals that we can research further. 

As mentioned, this type of work can be continuous where we report as we have interesting data collected. However, the occasional ceremonial days will help us keep the information organized. 

Remarks: Modified: 05/28/2022

05/31/2021 -- Added image for our portal. 

05/28/2022 -- Memorial Day, 2022 - An Osage Mission.