It is a personal mission to discover and understand, validate and maintain family heritage. A family tree is an obvious means and method. Civic ledger books and Church records are commonly used to validate the verbal recall of relatives during generational passdown. This printed historical documentation has been digitized and access enabled through personal computing.
An example is the military experience of family members who were engaged by World War. There are those who kept memories alive and told all; going so far as to write memoirs, books, and reminisce at social reunion with others who also shared in the experience. They re-live those years which they consider to be an important part (if not the highlight) of their lifetime.
Those family members that I knew who served, had vivid memories as well but there was a difference. They didn’t wish their lives to be defined by this particular event and in an effort to move on, their war stories were seldom a topic of casual conversation. Those of us eager to know “what it was like” gathered the anecdotal tidbits over time.
With the internet and the availability of declassified military reports it is now possible to the retrace events as a virtual itinerary. This timeline validates the first person recount and adds clarification to bigger picture understanding.
Browsable portals such as the WWII Archives Foundation and this enthusiast collection contain reams of raw data. The above view is a snapshot sample of a war diary of a naval warship observing the hour to hour defensive or offensive exploits in the Pacific Theatre. Another example illustrates an Army Air Force sortie in Europe. This becomes especially interesting knowing that family relatives were involved during these recordings. Putting it altogether as a retelling the memory can be preserved.
