My husband has spent many many hours tracing his family tree and mine, using Sam as a starter person. He uses Family Tree Maker and the Ancestry.com site. He is… well, a bit obsessive about it, but in a good way; it’s his hobby. I encourage him. He has done amazing things, and traced us back a long, long way. He has at reporting 690 people, 140 media, and 1220 reference records. He can go back to the 1600’s on some of my lines. He can go back to the late 1200’s on his side! He’s found out lots of curious things about my family, like that on my Mom’s side I am a descendant of a Mayflower Compact signer, Richard Warren, who was born in England in 1579, and the Mayflower landed in 1620. His wife and three daughters arrived three years later on the good ship Anne. Richard Warren’s other descendants include Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Alan Shepard, Jr. How about that!

My family’s history in the American wars is also interesting.

Revolutionary War

On my Dad’s side, we have Peter Seitz, my five times great grandfather, who was born 1755 in Lincoln County North Carolina. in 1776 he was listed as an Ensign of the 2nd Battalion of the Continental Troops. He survived the war and later moved to Madison County Missouri and died on his farm in 1842. His great great granddaughter married Daniel Luther Glaves, whose story is below in the Civil War. Also on my Dad’s side we have Thomas Davis, a farmer from Hardin County Kentucky, whose will we have, which is quite interesting to read.

On my Mom’s side, we have Nathaniel Shaw, Born in 1717 in Pympton Mass., who “responded to the Lexington Alarm as Captain of Col. James Warren’s regiment Massachusetts Troops.” (quote from a DAR lineage book). We also have Joseph Atwood, a Sergeant in Massachusetts. He was married to Nathaniel Shaw’s daughter, Elizabeth.

Civil War

I have a Union soldier on my Dad’s side, Richard Laycock, my Great Great Uncle, member of Wisconsin 1st Infantry Company I, a Private. He enlisted on September 22 1861 and died a little over a year later at the Battle of Chaplin Hills in Kentucky. He was an emigre from England, having come across with his father, my Great Great Grandfather Abraham Laycock, and I am descended from Abram, Richard’s step brother.

I also have a Confederate soldier on Dad’s side, Daniel Luther Glaves, who shot the first cannon at the Battle of Pilot Knob in Missouri, with the Fourth or Harris’ Field Battalion of the Missouri Light Artillery. We have a great photograph of him with a huge white mustache. After the war he married and settled in Madison County Missouri and became a farmer.

On my Mom’s side for the Civil War, Union side, I have my Great Great Grandfather Carl Gustav Dreutzer, who emigrated from Sweden to fight for his new nation. He was in Wisconsin 14th Infantry Company G, enlisted on February 11, 1862 when he was 16; was wounded on October 3rd, in Corinth Mississippi, and mustered out November 12, 1862 on a disability charge. He survived the war, and went on to settle and become a very successful printer in Milwaukee. I have his rifle.

WWI

My Dad’s Dad, my very own Grandfather, fought in World War I (when I was growing up I was very proud of that: most of my classmates had grandfathers in WWII, and they used to try to correct me. Nuh-uh!). Earl Abram Laycock was born in Fort Scott Kansas in 1887. All his life, both before and after the war he worked jobs that took him all over the mid west. He built roads, worked in quarries, things like that; he ran a steam shovel. All skills that would have helped him in the war. At the time he enlisted he was working for a company as a dredge man on the Mississippi. He was in the 86th Division 341 Infantry, United States Army, Company F. Unfortunately, all the military records from WWI burned in a fire. What a tragic loss! We know he was in France. Dad says he told the story of how they would pass bags of bread up to the men in the trenches, and that by the time it got to them it would be inedible because it had been dragged through mustard gas. We have a German helmet, and his doughboy helmet. Also, one of my prized possessions, a bound copy of The Stars and Stripes for the whole of the war years, that grandfather bought when he got home. I’ll have to ask Dad if he has any more to add to the story. Grandpa was a proud VFW member. I was six when Grandpa died, so was too young to have asked him questions… I’ll have lots stored up for when we meet again one day.

WWII

Mom’s Dad, Joseph Gordon Atwood, was not allowed to sign up for WWII; two men had approached him and commissioned part of a casing. They did not tell him what it was for. He was an electrical engineer and inventor at the time. It was only later that he found out it was a part of The Manhattan Project. It stayed with him for his whole life… he didn’t talk about it. I’ll have questions for HIM, too.

My Great Uncle Russell Kickbush flew the hump, based out of India. (Thanks, Tabatha, for the correction).

Other Wars

I had an Uncle by marriage in the Marines who fought in Korea.

My Dad served, was a speech therapist in the Army in France, but it was between wars, and he didn’t see action (for which he, and I, are very grateful).

So that’s pretty much my military history LOL. It’s late: time to wrap this one up. Much help from my resident adorable genealogist; thanks honeybunch.