“also had a great-uncle who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in WWI, who was killed in France two months before the Armistice”
My Grandmothers older brother was killed November 7 1918.
All that was returned was some personal effects and his Bible.
Now I retain his Bible in my personal effects.
Thank you for sharing your family history. He died even later than my Great-Uncle, so his death is even more poignant. Only four days before the Armistice took effect. Do you know where he is buried?
I never knew much about my great-uncle until I traveled to Canada after my mother passed in 1990, to do research into my family history. My mother was born in Canada. She always told me he was buried in Flanders Field. I knew it had to be in one of the countries that fought in WWI, but it wasn't until my first visit to the village she was supposed to have been born (Canadian officials were never able to locate a record of her birth), I came across a WWI monument on the village green. My great-uncle's name was on it along with others from the area. While I was looking over the monument, a gentleman who lived across the street from the green came over and started talking to me. I told him I'd found my great-uncle's name on the monument, and he told me to write the Military Archives in Ottawa to get his records. The Archives sent me everything they had, even his burial site, which is Terlincthun British Military Cemetery in Wimille, France. For a small amount, they took a photo of his headstone for me. I have two pictures of him. One as a civilian. The other, he is in uniform, sitting bareback on a horse which I assume belonged to the military.
My great-grandmother was still alive in Canada when he passed, but the records show that his personal effects, awards, etc. were sent to his mother's sister for some reason, so all that stuff was lost over the years. I never knew any of my grandparents on either side, never even realized until I went to Canada, that my great-grandmother was still alive when my grandmother passed in 1946. I managed to locate the funeral parlor my grandmother was buried from, and the records they dug out showed her mother (my great-grandmother) paid the expenses. My grand-mother is buried in the same cemetery as her great-grandmother (my 2nd great-grandmother). I managed to find the cemetery to get pictures. Have never been able to locate my Canadian great-grandmother's grave, or my Canadian grandfather's date of death or burial site...nor a great-aunt...the sister of the fallen soldier, who was a widow living in Covington, Ky. She may have remarried, and that's why I've never been able to find her. I found where her husband was buried, and there was a double plot, but she was never buried in it. Working on my family tree, it's been easier to make connections from years gone by, than it has been to make those closer in generations.