In my early 30’s I became the (self appointed) historian and genealogist of my family. I actually started doing research on my Father’s family tree in an effort to find his half-brother whom he had never met. He didn’t ask me to do it and I wasn’t sure he’d be happy about it, so I didn’t tell him. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?!
All I really knew was that my grandfather had been married before he enlisted in the Army during WWII and they had a baby son. That was really about it. So I was hoping with the help of genealogy websites like Ancestry that I could find out more information about him. Turns out, if the family member is still living almost all of their information is private. I was out of luck.
Around the same time, my parents moved into a new house and because of all the work I had done on the family tree my Dad gave me an old trunk that belonged to my grandfather. He told me he wasn’t sure what all was in it but he knew there were some of grandpa’s army medals inside. Um, ok, what? HECK YEAH! I was so excited!
I learned many things from that old trunk. First, I am allergic to mold and mildew. But that didn’t stop me from spending hours perusing all of the trunk’s treasures. Yes, there were LOTS of old papers; mostly old insurance documents, old real estate deeds, and anything else that grandpa thought was important. And then I found a few medals and a bunch of letters…a few of which were in French. I was totally hooked!
So the story that I heard as a young adult was that my grandfather, William Edge, was in the Army Air Corps during WWII. His plane was shot down, he was helped by the French Resistance and then something went wrong and he was captured by the Germans and sent to a German concentration camp (Buchenwald) until the end of the war. That was really all I knew. I wanted the whole story.
I started looking for documents that proved any of the story. I started searching Fold3.com, which has tons of de-classified military documents. I immediately found him on a list of WWII Prisoners of War. I was in awe. The stories were all true!
In a history-induced euphoria I posted a memorial page with just a small bit of his information on Fold3 and a photograph of him. I felt like his story needed to be out there for someone to see. Who knew it would change my life?