Heartland Genealogy

When I mailed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Veterans Affairs in December 2024, I knew I might be waiting awhile. Like many genealogists, I had visions of a thick packet of records arriving in the mail — perhaps pension paperwork, correspondence, medical records, or details about my grandfather’s World War I service. Nine months later, the response finally arrived. The information provided about my grandfather, Leon Crawford, was surprisingly sparse -- just the date of his marraige. My original submission provided my grandfather's date of birth and death along with his enlistment and discharge dates and identifying number. Unfortunately, this lack of detail was not entirely unexpected. Since Leon served during World War I, any surviving military personnel records would likely have been stored at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis in 1973 when the devastating fire destroyed approximately 80 percent of Army pe...

When researching family history, some of the most valuable records can be found in unexpected places. In Kansas, military veterans often filed copies of their discharge papers with the county Register of Deeds. These records provided a safe local copy of their military service information and could later be used to help prove eligibility for veterans’ benefits. Today, access to many of these records is restricted for privacy reasons. However, when I first began researching my family history years ago, these records were still accessible to researchers. Thanks to that earlier access, I was able to view the discharge records for both my father, who served during World War II, and my grandfather, Leon Crawford, who served during World War I. Unfortunately, this was long before smartphones and digital cameras made it easy to capture images at the courthouse. Instead of photographs, I came home with handwritten notes copied from the original record book. While not as visually strik...