I saw this on The Genealogist recently – Using Regimental Histories to discover your ancestor’s war – First World War Regimental histories can reveal some fascinating details for family historians tracing their ancestors in World War I: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2019/using-regimental-histories-to-discover-your-ancestors-war-1187/
These publications often provide details of battles and campaigns that the regiments were involved in and also lists the officers, and in some cases the men. They typically include various details relating to honours and medals awarded in the conflict. These military histories concentrate on a particular regiment, battalion or division and typically give a good account of the men’s progress across the battlefield usually including maps for better understanding the geography.
Most of these narratives will also name men and officers who had distinguished themselves on the battlefield and so if your soldier ancestor had been involved in some action at the time, that deserved a mention, then these records could fill in the story of their war for you.
–snip–
Ups Downs Family History 
Interesting use of regimental histories
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In my case, I had a great-grandfather’s brother killed in the Civil War. People wrongly assumed he fought in the 18th Pennsylvania. He didn’t, turns out he signed up for the U. S. Regular Army’s 18th, a completely different unit. I couldn’t find him in the 18th Pennsylvania, but when I widened my search, I found him in the 18th U. S. Regular Army.
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Wow. You are really quite the historian
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Now, if I could just figure out who a different great-grandfather (father’s mother’s father) was, that would be great. He’s an unknown. There’s a NC Bastardy Bond where he agreed to pay the bond, but denied being the father of the unborn child (my grandmother). Later, he married a distant cousin of my great-grandmother so DNA may not be helpful.
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Wow
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I thought so. Almost need to dig him and grandmother up to do a DNA comparison, but they could run $40,000+ if I could get a judge to sign off on it. I don’t have that kind of money and think there are much better uses if I did have that kind of money. Figure one day I will find out, but by then, it won’t matter.
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Yikes that is expensive
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Yes it is. That’s around $20,000 per exhumation, plus reburial costs. That’s not counting the cost of doing DNA testing on a dead person that may not be usable.
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Wow that is a lot of work when you describe it
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The hardest part would be getting a judge to approve the exhumation as they may not considered DNA collection a valid reason to dig someone up. Plus, there is no guarantee you would get viable DNA useful for genealogy purposes. From reports, there’s maybe a 50/50 chance of getting viable DNA. One company is willing to let you know if they can get viable DNA in cases like those and offers several options, but tend to be pricey as some DNA sample requires a deeper test than the cheaper test.
I would like my parents’ DNA, but they are buried in the Biloxi V.A. cemetery and that is probably harder to get permission than from a private cemetery. In theory, around 5 – 6 children can provide a fairly sizeable chunk of the parents’ DNA, close enough for most purposes.
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😦
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A major genealogy blogger opted out of spending $20K when she found the odds of getting usable DNA from her father was 50/50. Think if the odds were a lot higher she would have went for it.
I am hoping my 3 siblings and 2 half-siblings will go for it as that would be enough for a good amount of Dad’s DNA and a fair amount of Mom’s DNA. Be a lot cheaper than digging my parents up.
I need to find a cousin on Dad’s side who shares my grandmother’s mtDNA. It’s passed from mother to children, but only daughters pass it their children. Grandmother and Dad were only children, but Grandmother Smith had 1st cousins on her mother’s side.
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Wow you really know how this works
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I am hoping one day someone will combine Ground Penetrating Radar with a DNA testing capability. It may sound science fiction today, but I felt the same way when Star Trek introduced the communicator back in the 1960s. Little did I realize that in my lifetime, we would have cell phones that don’t need wires to call all around the planet.
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That would be so cool
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Yes, it would.
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🙂
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