Private Gandolfo Scarnici: Case Study of a Veteran of World War I

This webinar follows the life and service of Private Gandolfo Scarnici, an Italian-born American soldier of World War I, to demonstrate how military and genealogical records can be woven into a rich family narrative. Using one man’s story—from a Sicilian village to New Jersey mills, through training camps, the Meuse-Argonne offensive, and home again—the presenter shows how to locate, interpret, and correlate diverse sources, even when key files were destroyed in the 1973 personnel records fire. The case study highlights strategies that any genealogist can adapt to uncover an ancestor’s military path, social context, and postwar life.

• Turning a “burned” file into a full story
  The webinar explains how to work around destroyed Official Military Personnel Files by combining auxiliary pay records, state adjutant general files, draft registrations, unit muster rolls, and transport lists. Viewers learn how each fragment adds a different layer—enlistment details, unit assignments, promotions, overseas dates, and combat participation—until a surprisingly complete service history emerges.

• Placing ancestors in their historical and social landscape
  Beyond documents, the presentation emphasizes context: Italian immigration, prejudice and loyalty pressures, changing neutrality policies, the Selective Service Act, enemy alien regulations, and the Zimmerman Telegram. Understanding this backdrop helps genealogists interpret why an ancestor enlisted, how draft classifications worked, and what daily life may have felt like for ethnic communities during wartime.

• Decoding uniforms, numbers, and unit structure
  The case shows how service numbers, shoulder patches, collar discs, and campaign ribbons reveal whether a soldier was drafted or regular army, the division and brigade they belonged to, where they trained, and which battles they likely saw. Morning reports and published orders of battle then refine the picture to specific locations, dates, and actions on the Western Front.

Genealogists who want to see how all these sources work together—in real time, with document images, artifacts, and step-by-step reasoning—are encouraged to watch the full webinar. Viewing the complete presentation will provide a deeper understanding of both the records and the research logic behind them, and will help apply the same methods to other World War I ancestors. After watching, explore the additional resources listed in the syllabus, where curated links, archives, and suggested readings offer further guidance for advancing military and family history research.