"The Last Hundred Days" of WWI

Do you know that on November 11th, Canada will mark 90 years since the First World War ended?

More than 100,000 Canadians fought in that war and this year, the period from August 8th to the signing of the armistice on November 11th will be called "The Last Hundred Days."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement (08/08/08) that "Over 'The Last Hundred Days', Canadian soldiers advanced 130 km and 30 Canadians and Newfoundlanders earned the Victorian Cross."

If you are searching for your WWI ancestor, the best place to start your search is at the Canadian Genealogy Centre at <www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/022/022-909.006-e.html>.

There you will see the 600,000 personal records of Canadians who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).

If you enter the last name and the first name of your ancestor in the search engine, you will see the actual enlistment papers that your relative signed - the enlist papers that got him into WWI.

Also on the site is a section devoted to the Aboriginal Soldiers, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Newfoundland Forestry Corps, the Air Force and the Navy. (Some of these files may not be online - check with the LAC first to see if they are, or have to be, borrowed since they would be on microfilm.)

If you would like, you can also go to the Veterans Affairs Canada <www.vac-acc.gc.ca> site for information about the graves and memorials of the 116,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders who died.

The site contains digital images of photographs and personal memorabilia about individual Canadians.