Need help finding the Great War heroes in your family tree? The Fountaindale Public Library is hosting a free workshop and live stream of Here Come the Doughboys!: Tracing Your WWI Military Ancestors on Saturday, September 23 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CST!

Program Schedule

• Reconstructing your Soldier’s WWI Experience     9:30 a.m. – 11 a.m.
• I Have My Ancestor’s WWI Record – Now What?   11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
• The Spirit of St. Louis: WWI Records at the NPRC    1 p.m. – 2 p.m.
• Allied with the Allies & Aliens in the Army              2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
• Pandemic 1918: Combating the Spanish Influenza During the Great War  3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Program Handouts

9:30 am- Recreate Your Veteran’s WWI Experience

11:30 am – I Have My WWI Ancestors Military File

1:00 pm – Spirit of St. Louis Accessing Records at the NPRC

Additional Files from this lecture include:

• NARA Fillable Reference Service Slip non personnel file requests
• NPRC Example Forms
• NRPC Archives Reference Service Slip for Personnel files
• st-louis-NARA 2012

2:15 pm – Allied with the Allies and Aliens in the Army

3:30 pm – Pandemic Fighting Battling Influenza During WWI

While there was a loss of military service files from both WWI and WWII during the National Personnel Records Center fire in 1973, there are new and easily accessible records available for researchers both online and within several archives.   This workshop is designed to help genealogists and historians of all experience levels to begin researching their Great War ancestors.

Presenters Tina Beiard and Debra Dudek will help you locate military records, explore online resources, and navigate local, state, regional, and national depositories to create a fuller picture of your ancestor’s military service.

Both the live workshop and streaming webinar are free and open to the public.  With funding made possible by the World War I and America grant, recordings of each session will be made available for three years following the original webinar air date.

Click here to register for the live in-person workshop 

Click here to sign up for a free webinar reminder

Libraries, genealogy societies, museum, and archives are welcome to live stream this event or use recorded sessions provided their events are free and open to the public.  For site support and information contact ddudek@fountaindale.org.

Help us spread the word for our event!  Downloadable flyers are available for you to share with your group or organization!

Here Come the Doughboys WWI Program List

Here Come the Doughboys WWI Webinar with Times

This program is part of World War I and America, a two-year national initiative of The Library of America presented in partnership with The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the National World War I Museum and Memorial, and other organizations, with generous support from The National Endowment for the Humanities.