Honoring Family Who Served ...

I am a planner, and this can be good, or it could drive me crazy. 

When I started adding names to my genealogy database, I didn't have a plan.    Right now I add photos and keywords to a person's file.  Was I consistent with doing this?  Nope.

So, today, as I was clipping obituary notices from the paper for a local historical society, I noticed that the deceased who served in the military had a flag added to their obituary.  A light bulb went off.  Now, I wonder, why not add a flag image, for instance, to the photo records for those who served in the military and a cross for those who joined a religious order.  Great idea, right?  I want to start gathering these images to place them into a file. Then as I go back through my database, I can add the appropriate image to the ancestoral files. 

I am not a history buff when it comes to military history I am illiterate. I Googled this but got more and more confuse.  Sure doesn't take much to confuse me!  So, I have questions for my genealogy friends.

• Is there a specific marker for people who served in the various wars and battles?  I found ancestors who fought in the Civil War, Revolutionary War, the Battle of North Point in Maryland, WWI and WWII, Vietnam, etc. 
• For WWI and WWII I had planned on using the American flag.  Is there another image for each war that I should use?
• Are these markers of standard design no matter what state the person lived in?  I live in Pennsylvania and live close to the Maryland border where some of the ancestors may have lived at the time.

In the long run, I can visualize my pedigree chart with these impressive images.  In this day and age of information overload, scanning prefaces reading.  Having these images appear first on a pedigree chart would allow for seeing and appreciating our ancestors at a quick glance. 

Has anyone already done this to their database?  I would love hearing from you, if you did.  Thanks and have a great research day.

New family reunion coming to town

Every July 4th, or the first Sunday in July, the Staub family holds a reunion.  This year nearly 287 people signed up to attend.  I think that five generations are represented. 

The family matriarch, my husband's grandmother, died in 1986.  Since then all of his uncles and aunts have passed on.  This leaves my husband's generation to carry on the tradition of the annual Staub reunion.

So why am I writing about this?  It has been decided that our immediate family - my husband's brothers and sisters with their children and grandchildren - will hold its first reunion beginning in a few weeks.  Usually I don't get excited about reunions, mostly because my family didn't get together unless someone died.  No kidding!

I am excited because I can share my research with everyone (well, anyone who cares to listen), and hopefully get some of them excited enough to help with doing some of the research.  My ultimate goal is to seek out potential heirs to one day pick up where I left off.  I already have three possibilities; my son and his two cousins are all history majors, my son being the history teacher.  Someone, I hope, will assume this research when I no longer can.

So, in a few weeks I will share with you the results of our 'new' family reunion. 

Thank you for visiting my blog.