Paula Konsavage wrote: >Hi all, > >I am hoping someone out there can help me. Maybe someone has run into a >similar problem. I am trying to get information on my great Uncle >Christopher Schmerfeld. He was in World War One and died and is buried in >the Phillipines. When I first attempted to get information, I wrote a >letter to the national archives. They gave me a file number but, told me I >need to write to the Dept of Veterans Affairs regional office in >Philadelphia. So I wrote another letter and sent it to Philadelphia. >Philadelphia's response was the records were in Washington state and needed >to be sent for. This was back in January of this year. Philadelphia said >they would send me the records as soon as they were received by them. In >the mean time I wrote to the Personnel Dept of Veterans in St. Louis >Missouri. Seeing that they had a fire back in 1973 and a lot of the records >were destroyed, they sent me what they could reconstuct using other records. >>From Missouri I obtained a death date, place of death and enlistment >information. I just received word from Philadelphia that they have no >records for my uncle. What could have happened to the records? My uncle >was never married and had no children. I am also wondering why he was >buried in the Phillipines and never brought back to the states to be buried. >Does anyone know who I have to contact to try to obtain a death certificate >for him? He died 6 June 1929 in the US Army hospital-Sternberg General >Hospital, Manila, Philippines. The Army is my only chance on obtaining >information on him. Most of my relatives were unaware he even existed. If >anyone knows how I can proceed from here please let me know. I am really >curious as to how he died, if he had war injuries or just had gotten sick. >Thank you for your help. > >Paula Konsavage >Ray's Yankee! > Hi! I would try contacting your County Veteran's Affairs Office & explain the above. Hopefully they will know whom you should contact for additional information - or even if it can be found. Your local Veterans of Foreign Wars or Legion may also be able to help "brainstorm" for additional ideas of where to look. As a last resort, try your local congressman's office & ask them to look into it. If he was still in the military when he died, I would think the Department of the Army should have something, somewhere! I wish you the best of luck... -Linnea ==== PENNA-DUTCH Mailing List ==== New? Looking for a quick connection? Visit the surnames list associated with this mail list at http://members.aol.com/PennaDutch/pdlsurnames.html