Merry Christmas!

Above is Niola Edith Gieger Poore, my grandmother. She was born on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 1889, in Jones County, Mississippi, and today is the 126th anniversary of her birth.

I'm often amazed that I knew someone who was born so many years ago. It is a good reminder for us to capture our family's stories and to keep them alive for the next generation.

Merry Christmas!

Veterans Day Salute: Alonzo Geiger

Alonzo W. Geiger, photo courtesy of Caroline Geiger Mulican and Kerry Cayten

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm again posting my Veterans Day Salutes to my family.

Alonzo Winfield Geiger was a 22-year-old laborer at the Marathon Lumber Co. in Laurel, Mississippi, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1918 for service in World War I.

Alonzo became a private first class with Company C of the 102^nd Engineers with the 27^th Infantry Division. The 27^th Division spent all of the war with the British Fourth Army and the contributions of the Americans in breaking through the Hindenburg Line sometimes have often been overlooked.

The 102^nd Engineers arrived at the front in advance of infantry and machine-gun units. Their dangerous job included repairing roads nearly destroyed after three years of shellfire.

In an attack on the Hindenburg Line on Sept. 29, 1918, Maj. Gen. John F. O’Ryan sent three companies of the 102^nd Engineers to occupy a reserve position north of Ronssoy. He had run out infantry units to put on the line in the bloody and ferocious battle.

Photo courtesy of Caroline Geiger Mulican and Kerry Cayten

The engineers weren't needed and the war ended for Alonzo and the other men of the 27^th Division when they were pulled back for a rest on Oct. 1.

After the war, Alonzo returned to Laurel and opened a gasoline service station on Central Avenue. A hard worker all his life, Alonzo could be found in the station six days a week. Sundays he reserved for church and visiting family.

Veterans Day Salute: Unknown Sailor and Soldier

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm again posting my Veterans Day Salutes to my family.

We don't know the names of this sailor and soldier, but the two men were members of either the Hosey, Geiger or Poore families of Jasper and Jones counties, Mississippi.

The uniforms are from the World War I period and so the photo was probably taken between 1917-1919.

The men's uniforms offer a few clues. Sailors called the style of hat worn here the “flat hat.” Civilians called it a “Donald Duck hat” or “pancake hat.” The top of the hat was 12 inches across.

Before 1941, the hat band, called a “talley” displayed the name of the sailor’s ship. In

Example of a flat hat
with the ship name
visible on the talley.

January 1941, with war under way in Europe, the Navy became concerned with the security of ship movements. So the services replaced the ship name with “U.S. Navy” or “U.S. Coast Guard.”

In this case, unfortunately, a shadow from the bright sunlight hides the name of the sailor’s ship on the talley.

Before the United States entered World War I, the Navy had switched to a smaller, floppier, more practical hat design. When the country entered the war in 1917, the Navy issued the many older flat hats it had in storage until the supply was exhausted.

The white piping on the right shoulder of the sailor indicates that he is in the seaman branch of the Navy. The three white stripes on the sleeve cuff indicate that he is a seaman first class.

The soldier’s uniform has no rank or unit markings. But his leggings tell us a little about him.

French civilians greet advancing American infantrymen

in this 1918 photo. The British-style puttee legging can

clearly be seen.

He appears to be wearing a light-colored canvas legging. This is a sign that he has not yet served in the war in Europe.

Canvas leggings proved impractical in the muddy trenches of Europe. So American troops quickly adopted British-style wool wrap leggings, known as puttees.

Puttees were about 8-12 feet long with 3-5 feet long tie ribbons. A soldier wrapped these around his leg starting from the ankle going all the way up to the knee. The puttees also were closer in color to the olive drab uniform.

So it seems likely that this photo was taken in 1917.

Centennial Good Time to Research Your Great War Ancestor's Military Service

Statement of Service Cards for my World War I
ancestors from Jasper and Jones counties, Mississippi.
Above, John H. Poore. Below Alonzo W. Geiger. 

In 2014, European nations will begin marking the centennial of the Great War. The war began in Europe on July 28, 1914, but the United States didn’t enter what was supposed to be “The War to End All Wars” until April 17, 1917.

This centennial observance is a good time to begin research into the service of your World War I doughboy ancestor.

More than 4.7 million American men and women served in the regular U.S. Armed Services, National Guard units or were drafted into other units. The war resulted in 53,402 American soldiers killed in battle, another 63,114 dead from disease and other causes and about 205,000 wounded.

As with almost all family history research, start with records that your family may hold such as discharge papers or an obituary.

Fortunately, Mississippi researchers have some excellent resources online. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and FamilySearch worked together to create the Mississippi World War I Statement of Service Cards and Indices.

These include records listing Mississippi veterans along with statement of service cards providing details

about their service. You can search an alphabetical list of veterans or search names by county.

Final pay voucher for Alonzo W. Geiger,
the "A.W.G." in the second entry.

You need the basic information about your ancestor’s service that these indices provide for a successful search of national records. You need to know, for example, if your doughboy served in the cavalry, infantry, field artillery, machine gun battalion, engineers and so on. Try to find out the company, troop or battery to which your ancestor was assigned.

After you have some basic facts you can request your ancestor’s military service records online, by mail or by fax from the National Archives.

But be aware that you are likely to run into the same problem as with getting most other military records—the 1973 fire that destroyed U.S. Army personnel records created from 1912 to 1963. But the fire didn’t damage U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps personnel files.

The fire left a big gap in service records, but National Archives has other records that may help in your research. Such alternative records include, for example, final pay vouchers. These can include such information as:

• Name
• Service number
• Date when last paid
• Rank at discharge
• Overseas service

For a fuller discussion of the other records available at the National Archives, read They Answered the Call Military Service in the United States Army During World War I, 1917-1919 by Mitchell Yockelson available online.

Construction of troop quarters at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1917. Note the pre-fabricated hut structures on the trucks. Camp Shelby opened July 1917. Photo from Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, Camp Shelby.

Poore-Gieger marriage, 1907

Ezra August Poore (1882-1963) and Niola Edith Gieger (1889-1983) posed for this photo on what was probably their wedding day, Nov. 10, 1907. The pose is typical of wedding photos. The couple was married in Laurel, Mississippi.