Memorial Day USA - Kenneth Scott Bates - 52 Ancestors

As this is US Memorial Day weekend, it's certainly a good time to research your USA military members and families for free. I'm thinking particularly of one of my US veteran cousins today, Kenneth Scott Bates (1919-1998), son of Edward Kimball Bates and Harriott(e) Alice Louise Scott. Kenneth was very interested in his family history and shared information and documents when he visited us in Vancouver, BC.

There are several offers for free access to selected military records.

To May 26 Ancestry: http://www.ancestry.com/cs/us/memorialday2014

And all May - Fold3: http://go.fold3.com/wwii/ The newest records at Fold3 are for US Medal of Honor recipients. For more about this collection, see this Fold3 blog article: http://blog.fold3.com/medal-of-honor-recipients

To May 26 My Heritage: http://pages.myheritage.com/memorialday

My Heritage is my current favourite of the BIG commercial websites. I made a somewhat surprising discovery there last night, in fact. So far, My Heritage seems to have a wide range of types and dates of US military records, millions they say, from the War Between the States through to World War II -  too long a list to post.

Don't forget that FamilySearch also has US military records.  I often find that it's helpful to go back and forth. If I can't find someone in one website's indexes, I may find it in another and the information included may be a bit different  - or there may be associated articles to explain certain aspects of the records, as there are at FamilySearch.

BATES, SCOTT family get together, in Montpelier, Vermont, at the Bates home, c. 1920. Kenneth Bates is the young one in the back row here.

Shown are - Front: Janet Muriel Scott, my mum, from Newdale, Manitoba, Canada; Edward Wallace Bates, my cousin.

Second row: Jeannette Bates, my cousin; May Janet (Wood) Scott from Nottawa, Ontario, Canada, born in Bean Hill, Connecticut, USA, my great grandmother; Amy Estella (Irwin) Scott from Newdale, my grandmother; Annie Pollock Scott, my great aunt, also from Nottawa.

Back: Hariott(e) Alice Louise, Hattie, (Scott) Bates, my great aunt, born in Nottawa, Ontario, Canada; and Edward Kimball Bates, Hattie's husband, with their younger son, Kenneth Scott Bates.

Postcard, Made in Canada, black & white, unmailed. I believe the photographer was my grandfather, James Walter Scott from Newdale, born in Nottawa. Individuals were identified by my grandmother, Amy Estella Scott, in the 1960s.

Walter Scott - 52 Ancestors

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This is a photograph of my great grandfather, Walter Scott (1827 Scotland-1892 Ontario, Canada), as identified by my grandmother, Amy Estella Scott. Private collection.

Since Walter Scott was my mother's paternal grandfather, but died before she was born, she was very interested in him and his family in Scotland. Mum knew some information but had a number of questions, about what happened to his brother John's son, for example, which I worked on early in my family history research. Many of these questions resulted in some interesting discussions and some great genealogy trips!

The interesting part (for me) was that Walter Scott had been granted a divorce from his first wife in 1877 in Canada, something my mother only learned accidentally as a young adult and never told me till I started researching the family when, as she said, "You'll find out anyway."

I have posted a brief summary and some other photographs of our Scott family on a Tribal Pages site, SCOTT family: Muiravonside, Dalmeny, Tushielaw, Galashiels, Grangemouth, in Scotland: http://www.tribalpages.com/tribes/mdianerogers

James Walter Scott - Manitoba - 52 Ancestors

My grandfather, James Walter Scott (known as Walter), was born in Nottawa, Ontario in 1885. I have quite a lot of information about his Scott family and have a basic family tree here.

At the turn of the century in 1902, Grandpa moved to Manitoba by himself and settled in Newdale where he met and married my grandmother, Amy Estella Irwin, in 1910.

According to my grandmother, Grandpa Scott first worked in Thomas N. Peter's store. In the 1910s, he was in  business operating a general store with W. R. (William Robert) Lavery. This photograph, identified by my grandmother as showing Grandpa (on your right), W. R. Lavery (left) and Jack Kaskey (centre) together, seems to corroborate my mother's information - that he was also in business with at least one other person. I would like to learn more about Mr. Kaskey.

Walter Scott, Jack Kaskey, W.R. Lavery, Cabinet card; no photographer's information. Private collection.

It appears that there was a second photograph taken of the three men on the same day. I've posted that on tmy Newdale Genealogy website today.

George William Rogers, Vancouver, BC - 52 Ancestors

I won't be writing about all my 52 Ancestors in any particular order, but I thought since I've already written about my Mum I'd best be following with my Dad. This is one of my favourite photographs of him, taken by me in my parents' house in the 1980s with the Rogers cats.

Dad, with Purrt and Teddy (Purrt's son), 1990s. Private collection.

When she was cross, my Mum was quick to say he and I were a lot alike ("just like your Dad!") and I think that's true, but we surely didn't always agree. He was a more practical person (and very handy at fixing things). He loved his family, and was interested in big band jazz, stamps, coins and politics, not always in that order and yes, he loved cats.

Here's one of my past articles about him: "Vancouver, 1951 - After the Election - Ready for Work". Born in South Vancouver in 1917, he lived in the Vancouver area all his life except during World War II when he was mostly in Washington, D.C. He had several successful businesses, the last with my Mum, and although he retired a couple of times, he never stopped working, just looked around for something different to do.

One of my few genealogical / historical regrets is that I didn't write down the stories he told me early on about his growing up years, especially about working at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver where he had worked with his dad. He didn't seem to think these were very important, but now that he's gone, of course, they are to me. 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge - 2014

 

Amy Johnson Crow challenged herself to blog 52 Ancestors at her own website, No Story Too Small, this year. Many bloggers and others signed themselves up to do the same.

I’ll be blogging here at CanadaGenealogy, or, Jane’s Your Aunt, but I’ve many articles and photos relating to Newdale, Manitoba that I want to share too on my Newdale, Manitoba, Canada genealogy site.

 So I’m taking up Amy’s challenge for both sites, beginning this week. Most of my posts may be short!  But I hope to keep up with things (once I'm caught up since I started a tad late).