30 Days of Remembrance

[Guest]

Apologies in advance if I'm posting this out of turn. When I initially signed up I saw a thread for a mandatory first post but it seems to have vanished once I registered.

This year Canada Remembers, an outreach branch of Veteran Affairs Canada challenged people to use social media to recognize Canadian soldiers from the Virtual Memorial Honour Roll for 30 days instead of just Nov 11
http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem

I took this on in the form of a daily blog post - choosing one soldier per day, who joined the Canadian forces during WW1 and I'm attempting to do a bit of background on them. I'm on Day 22 currently and I am learning more everyday. In searching for one particular member of the RAF I found this forum and realized what a wealth of information is shared here. I am not a military expert, just an amateur genealogist so there is often parts of records that I don't comprehend. I'm hoping that if I have specific questions, someone here maybe able to answer them or clarify things for me so that I can better understand.


Their stories are sad and beautiful and I wish I had time to do more in depth research. I'm posting the link here so that if if anyone recognizes these men or has anything to add, I encourage you to post it to the comment section of my blog or email me so I can add it to the original blog post, with full credit.

The blog is here:

http://therisingvillage.blogspot.ca/

Thanks!

Heather

[KevinBattle]

Heather

A great idea and well done you for the work put in and ensuring these men are brought back to our knowledge.

How were these men selected? Are you given a list or simply at random or what?

I'm sure many others will look at those on your blog and add any information available from this side.

Best regards and look forward to what can be added.

Perhaps there are more doing likewise and we could soon see an influx of similar projects - that would be nice!

[Guest]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for the comments!

The suggestion from Canada Remembers:

30 Ways to Remember - Day 17: Search the Honour Roll for the names of those Canadians who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Make a commitment to share a name every day on your social media channels for a month and remind your followers and friends about their sacrifice.

I decided to choose names in alphabetical order but otherwise random from the Virtual Memorial Honour roll, linked above. I did this just as a personal project for my own interest but realized it's much more effective if it reaches others as well.

I also hope to be able continue on a larger scale at a later date. I frequently work with Fort York Historical site in Toronto - http://www.fortyork.ca/ For the past two years we have been holding events and activities to commemorate the anniversary of the War of 1812. With the approaching centenary of WWI we are currently looking at projects to acknowledge local Toronto residents who were active in the war and I'm hope to do some similar research in this manner.

I'm grateful for any additional information and source material that any one can offer!