Check facts before saving information

I'm sure you all have been in my shoes. You find a partial bag of carrots in the back of your vegetable bin. You're not sure when you bought them and they kind of look OK. After all they are a root crop and root crops last forever! Well, at least they aren't squishy like the bag with two leafs of lettuce in it. So, are they soup carrots? Or, are they garbage carrots? When in doubt throw it out?

My genealogy files remind me of those carrots sometimes. I'll pull a file and suddenly there will be articles, links or pictures that I've saved stuck in the back and the big question is why. The question mark (well, sometimes I remember to put a question mark and a note on them) tells me I wasn't sure when I saved the information if it actually pertained to that person or family but the big problem is, I probably didn't have time to thoroughly read or study what I saved and I never seem to get back to it. Back in the file it goes so I can stare at it another time!

Recently I took the time to read through a news article I had attached to my great-great-grandfather but never really studied. It was fascinating reading about a Davison man who had served in the Civil War along with his sons and two sons-in-law and all of them had survived the war. Great story, just not my family's story taking up space in that file folder! Had I taken the five minutes when I saw the article and printed it off to double check all the names, I would have known better than to waste another moment of my time. Don't be like Sue; take the time to check the facts before you keep the information. Genealogy is hard enough to keep on track without derailing yourself!

Here's a bit of WWII information that I found. While the Allied Nations are known most commonly as the United States of America, British Empire, China and Russia (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR), the following countries or their governments in exile and partisan movements also supported the allied effort: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Philippines, Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia (all conquered nations whose partisan citizens fought against the Axis countries); Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Iraq, Iran, Liberia, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt, Lebanon, Paraguay, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela.

While Brazil actually provided some 27,000 service men and women, Costa Rica's involvement included detention camps (similar to the U.S. Japanese detention camps) and deportation of some German decent citizens to the United States.

Mexico declared war on Germany in 1942 and formed the Escuadron 201 Fighter squadron as part of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force. It was attached to the 58th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces and carried out support missions during the liberation of the Philippine island of Luzon. In addition, some 15,000 US nationals of Mexican origin and Mexican residents in the US enrolled in the US Armed Forces and fought for the Allies.

Saturday, June 4, at 1:30 p.m., Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society will hold its monthly meeting in the library located at 110 West C, Suite M-3. Everyone is welcome.