VETERANS

It has been less than 10 months since I started Albany Hilltowns and I am so pleased with the progress! Especially with the Civil War book project (see main page).  Although there is much remaining to be done on it, I think we can at the same time work on other projects.

Veterans Day will soon be here. With that in mind, I took a look at what we have posted on the site about our Hilltown veterans, and am disappointed that there is so little. We have the names of folks in Berne and Knox in WWII who served in the military, and that is about it.

We need to begin gathering the names of the Hilltown men and women who served in other wars and conflicts. And these lists are just the beginning. For each name we need a biography that tells about their military service and their lives before and after.

I have created pages to gather names of service personnel in WWI and II in each of the Hilltowns, and will add pages for other wars and conflicts. But that is as far as I can go by myself.

Thanks to my sister Marilyn Nardollio and Joanne Lauster we have over 3000 obituaries of people in the Hilltowns Genealogy posted on the Berne Historical Project site at Bernehistory.org. Most obituaries of folks who served in the military make mention of the basic facts of their military career. Volunteers could go through the obituaries, and not only list veterans on the Albany Hilltown site, but also copy the obituary as the first step toward creating biographies.

I can't ask our present volunteers to take on this task, as they are already busy. We need some fresh blood, so to speak. If there is anyone in our group with an interest in preserving the memories of our Hilltown ancestors who were vertrans, and who has the time, please contact me so we can begin this large task.

As with all of our projects, everyone will do what they can at their own pace with no pressure of deadlines. We just plod along until hopefully another project is finished.