How to find where grandfather fought

The victory in the great Patriotic war came at a heavy price the Russian people. Millions of people died, millions were missing. Still people looking for their relatives who took part in the battles of the great Patriotic war: great grandfathers, grandfathers, fathers. And if a few years ago, in search it was possible to rely only on the rare stories of friends of veterans, today, thanks to modern communications, to find his grandfather and the place where he fought, so much easier.

Instruction

Start looking best with the use of new online resources: a Generalized data Bank "memorial," the Public electronic Bank documents "feat of the People in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945.". There's a chance that by typing name and surname of his grandfather, you will get the right information – find out where he served, what rank, what awards were put in charge, what year, and for some reason, ended their participation in the battles.

The data for filling the data banks are taken from the official archival documents stored in the Russian state military archive, Central archive of the defense Ministry, the State archive of the Russian Federation, the Central Navy archive of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation, the Management of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation on perpetuating of memory of victims at protection of Fatherland. The bulk of the papers - reports of combat units on the losses, archival documents in which a specified loss (documents of hospitals and hospital, funerals, trophy cards of prisoners of war, etc.), passport of the graves of Soviet soldiers and officers.

Resources are constantly updated, so if you have not found information on where he fought your grandfather or great-grandfather, don't despair – with time it can appear. However, it is necessary to continue the action and to appeal to the search engines who are engaged in excavation on battlefields, to study the graves and search for any information about the defenders of the Fatherland during the great Patriotic war. To do this, register on the forums dedicated to this topic and ask there a question about his relative.

You will answer, but be prepared that you will have to provide some facts about serviceman: address of the recruiting office that he was drafted and the year of the call, the part number, which got the desired (to obtain these data, contact the district military enlistment office). If the family preserved the letters or funerals, scan and send to the forum. To help the search engines any information is helpful, so ask all family members: grandparents, parents – maybe someone can think of something.

Try also to get to know veterans from that town or village, where he was called your grandfather or great-grandfather or their families. You can find them through a friend, if the city is small, or through the above-mentioned database by entering a search by city and year of conscription. You may be able to find the brother of his grandfather, who will tell you about where and how your grandfather fought.

Write a letter to the publisher of the Book of Memory, make a request to CAMD, or go to the Archive – there is a chance that there you will find the part number, in which fought your kin, and will be able to find out his fate.

Show patience and perseverance, carefully analyze all available information, and it is very likely that you will be able to find out where grandfather fought, even if he had long been missing.

Useful advice

If you can't find any information about the relative electronic databases - try to reduce the number of words in the query string or even the number of letters in names. Perhaps in the first or last name of your relative in one of the military documents were made a typo.

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