52 Ancestors Challenge 2015: Week 21 Recap

52ancestors-2015-21On Monday, the United States observed Memorial Day, a day to honor the men and women of our armed forces who gave their lives in service to our country.

The theme for Week 21 was “Military.” Many of you wrote about ancestors and cousins and uncles who served. They were beautiful tributes.

I’m only going to highlight one post this week. Roberta did such an incredible job of telling the story of Frank and her mother. Through it, we can learn not only about their lives, love, and loss, but reflect upon what our own ancestors struggled with.

Please read Roberta Estes’ essay, “Frank Sadowski (1921-1945), Almost My Father,” on DNAeXplained.

Thank you, Roberta, for sharing their story with us.

Your Turn

Who did you write about this past week? Leave a comment below with a link to your post and a little bit about the ancestor you wrote about. Also take a look at last week’s posts. As always, there is some wonderful reading to be had there.

week21-military

Upcoming Optional Themes:

  • Week 22 (May 28 – June 3) – Commencement
  • Week 23 (June 4 – 10) – Wedding
  • Week 24 (June 11 – 17) – Heirloom
  • Week 25 (June 18 – 24) – The Old Homestead
  • Week 26 (June 25 – July 1) – Halfway

39 thoughts on “52 Ancestors Challenge 2015: Week 21 Recap

  1. robertajestes

    Thanks Amy, for the kind words. Frank’s story was heartbreaking to my mother and lifechanging. I know there are so many stories like this that have gone untold and are now probably forgotten. My mother never forgot. She went on, she lived her life, but a very different life that what was planned.

    SADOWSKI – Frank Sadowski (1921-1945), Almost My Father

    http://dna-explained.com/2015/05/27/frank-sadowski-1921-1945-almost-my-father-52-ancestors-73/

    Reply
  2. Patti Di Loreto

    LYONS – I featured my great grandfather, John Henry Lyons (1883-1957). During WWII, he served as an “air-raid warden” in the rural part of Dallas County, TX where the Lyons family lived. I’ve included some info on him, air-raid wardens in general through books & you-tube as well as book suggestions about life “on the homefront” during WWII. My Pinterest board address
    here:

    https://www.pinterest.com/pattidi/52-ancestors-on-pinterest/

    P.S. Also want to add that a sweet lady among this group of bloggers sent me a note on Pinterest asking why I did not have a blog. I answered her, but will go ahead and answer here, too, in case anyone has wondered about that. Someday, I hope to start a blog, I know that I will want to spend time on it and really make it a nice one (like all of yours’). Right now, I spend a lot of time helping my parents – my mother has stage 4 cancer and my father has other health problems and no longer drives, so I am blessed to be able to help them out at this point in their lives and that’s a pretty big “focus” for me. I really wanted to do this challenge, and was thinking I couldn’t without a blog, until one day, I was looking through my ancestry boards on Pinterest and thought, “Hey! I can do it there!” And that’s how I came to do this 52 Ancestor challenge – Pinterest style!

    Reply
  3. pen4hire

    Susan KLUNGE(?) SAMPSEL

    I have covered military ancestors several times before, so I continued with a pledge to myself that I would uncover some female ancestors. However, this great-great grandmother just goes to show how difficult it is to track women–even her maiden name is in doubt. (although the url says “20”, this really is my 21st, and even though I’m very late posting this, it was published on time. I’ve been on a road trip.)

    http://ancestorsinaprons.com/2015/05/52-ancestors-20-great-great-grandmother/

    Reply

Leave a Reply to robertajestes Cancel reply