A Different Source for me- Ancestors in 52 Weeks

  Another prompt by 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. It's run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Information on the Topic

This weeks theme is "Unusual Source." Not all of our genealogy discoveries come in the "regular" sources like vital records and the census. What is a discovery that you've made using an unusual source?

This is an interesting topic as usually my main ways to find out things are: family, newspapers, marriage, death notices and indexes, and business directories. I've looked other places but haven't really found out too much otherwise. 

The Main NEW Source which sticks out as a different source to me is the Internet Archive. 

I've found things by a person who was a great scupltor in France but I cannot link him to the family who can be found on the Internet Archive. He was the only one until recently, when I found a link to a book called "History of the Two Hundred and Third Regiment, New York Infantry Volunteers" by Rigney, Peter Samuel which is listed there. 

It lists my great uncle Charles Gauquie. Charles Gauquie was the younger brother of my great grandfather Jules Gauquie. 

He was born on Febuary 2, 1876 in Brussles Belgium. By 1893, the family had moved from Belgium to the United States according to his father's naturalization paperwork when he was about 17 years old. Then in 1898, he enlisted into the Spanish American War. This  I had found out in the newspapers. 

I have mentioned his before and more indepth here. 

However, I had now found out that Peter Rigney had listed the history of his regiment which was exciting because it gave a glimpse of what he did while at Camp Meade. 

The whole page looks like this with his last name highlighted in purple: 

Credit 

The area where Charles is located is this one below. 

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It confirms it was him because it references Company D which he was in according to what I had found. But the sentence "...who were detailed with the Brigade bakery when the regiment moved..." were also key in identifying him because it made sense. 

Further, in the same book there was a Roll of Company D. According to the listing, there was a Corporal named Andrew B. Westervelt. I wonder if he knew him as the Westervelt we have links to in Belgium. 

Charles' grandparents owned their own bakery (as the read box below shows) and had for years in Belgium. I'm sure he was brought up making things in the bakery. 

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I have briefly spoken about Desiderius (Desire) or Digger before in an earlier post on how to get more information using different techniques. 

However, this is the first time I've actually been able to clearly identify an ancestor in anything to do with the Internet or any journals, so to me this was a different source. 

Also, it makes a point to keep checking back at sources (which is another reason why they matter) to see if new information has come out since the last time you checked. You never know what you'll find.