Compiled by Lois and Norwood Barris
The original document from which this work was transcribed is in the collection of the Historical Society of Dunkirk. The museum housing this collection is located at 513 Washington Avenue, Dunkirk, NY.
John Nowak, vice president of the Society and Museum Chairman, started the transcription of this list. With the help of his wife, Louise, he produced the typescript on which the finished product was based. When he had the project about half completed, he realized that computer technology would produce a more usable document, one that could be sorted alphabetically or separated into various fields according to other aspects such as birth date, age or occupation. At this point Mr. Nowak turned the project over to us and we put the data into computer memory and printed the complete list.
Those who are using this document for research should be aware of the limitations of transcripts of this kind. We did the very best we could at accurately reproducing the handwritten information. We used city directories to help decipher difficult names. Many names were not included in those directories and we did resort to more than a few guesses. In many cases, the birth dates and ages recorded for an individual did not seem to agree. If this difference was more than a year or two, we added (sic) so that the researcher will know that the data was copied just as in the original.
One column in the original was devoted to past military experience of the enrollee. In most cases, \”none\” was written in this column. When there was experience noted, it was represented here just as it appeared in the original. There seemed to be no form, consistency or rule for the information appearing in this space. A few records were started and then struck out. These were entered as such.
Norwood J. and Lois Barris
January, 1992