Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen

Researching Military Records: Meet Expert Lori

• Kathleen Brandt • Episode 23

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We kick off Season 4 of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen covering military research at the National Archives, St. Louis with Lori Berdak Miller of Redbird Research.
What if your ancestor's military personnel records were lost in the 1973  Fire? 
Lori gives hints on reconstructing these lost records.
Her passion as a document retriever and military researcher shines through as she shares her finds within these military archival records.
Contact Lori at Redbird Research



Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.

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John:

Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City on the other side of the Mighty Mo, welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the do-it-yourself genealogy podcast that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and on this episode we'll be talking to Lori Burdak Miller. So let's start Hittin' the Bricks.

Kathleen:

So, Lori, how did we meet? Do you remember?

Lori Berdak Miller:

I believe we met at some genealogy conference, or else probably when you came out to the archives. One of the two would have to be Right. I think more likely it was probably the archives.

Kathleen:

It probably was. We were seeing each other at the archives because, john, as you know, when I first started my concentration was in military records, because that's my biggest interest and still my first love, and so I was always going back and forth once a month to St Louis, and this is before the new archives. So I really got to meet a lot of the other people who work there, and Lori does not work for the archives, she works for her own business, so maybe Lori can tell us a little bit about that.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Well, I started my business in August 2006, redbird Research and the reason I started it is I've always been into genealogy. Since I was in high school, I was tracing my dad's Slovak-Russian side of the family and taught myself sound decks, taught myself microfilm, and so, as the years went on, got married, had two daughters, have two daughters. I should say One's named after Kathleen, of course, but she's a little old, yeah, but your math ain't nothing but good.

John:

That's awful sweet right.

Lori Berdak Miller:

But my dad was in the Air Force for 20 years and so I'm an Air Force brat, born at Patrick Space Force now. So I've always been interested in military and genealogy. So I went to the St Louis Genealogy Conference that May of 2006 and met Jackie Ostrowski and they had a little table set up and Jackie was saying how the archives was going to be opening to the public to do research and that they get so many requests they don't have enough staff to handle it. And she goes well, you could come in and do research for people. Put your name on the NARA independent researchers website. I said, yeah, I'll think about. This was in April, may of 2006. Thought of it, that summer was talking to my husband and he was saying well, you know, the girls are old enough if you want to go back to work, you know. And I said, yeah, you know, I might do this. So I decided that August to go and that's when the National Archives was located off of Page Avenue, where where the famous fire happened in 73. But the building is still standing. So I went there, put my name on the independent researcher's website and got my first job within a week and a half.

Lori Berdak Miller:

It was a guy in McHenry, kentucky, where the Everly brothers were from, and they had a person in their cemetery they wanted to get a VA marker for but they needed documentation. So what I did was pulled the file and it was a pretty sad file because this gentleman ended up dying of tuberculosis in New York. But there was letters in the file from his wife, who was like 14 or 15 years old, wanting him to come home. She was living with the parents, his parents, and I mean it was this really a sad file that she never saw him again. So I was invited to their ceremony um the following spring when they got the dedication of the tombstone and um they gave me a bullet shell from the 21 gun salute and everything so it was cool so when I started my business, I didn't have their websites really weren't around back then so people would refer me to other people and that just built my company.

Lori Berdak Miller:

I actually didn't have my website until my my younger daughter graduated from the University of Central Missouri in 2017, and she has a business degree. So her and my husband said, oh, you need a website, but most of my jobs, even though I have a website, referrals are my main business and I accept that as a compliment, because people then like what you're doing for them.

Kathleen:

So it's not even a flashy website to show anything.

John:

That's your best testimony is the people who come back.

Kathleen:

So, john, I'm not sure we ever introduce who we're talking to.

John:

Well, maybe we should do that. You would think that somebody would produce this stuff. You know, that's what we're missing. We need a producer on this show, that's.

Lori Berdak Miller:

That's one of the biggest issues all this good kathleen, our kinder sisters here, and so the mystery.

John:

the mystery may be solved if you send 5, we'll tell you who we were talking to A self-addressed stamped envelope. We send $5.99, and we will forward to you the name of the person we were talking to. So we're talking to Lori Miller, Kathleen.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Burdack Miller.

John:

Oh, lori Burdack, Miller.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Yes, in case I have relatives out there.

John:

In case you didn't know, I did know, lori.

Kathleen:

Burdack Miller. Yes, I case I have relatives out there.

John:

In case you didn't know, I did know. Lori Burdick knows. Yes, I'm sure you guys just went straight to it.

Kathleen:

And Lori, you are in what area? What region are you in and which archives do you work for or work with I'm sorry.

Lori Berdak Miller:

That's all right. I do work. People think I work there too, but that's okay. I go to the National Archives in St Louis. I live currently in St Peter's, missouri, which is across the Missouri River, and I go there every day.

Kathleen:

Which is why, kathleen, you haven't been to St Louis for the purpose of records, research in how long records, research in how long Since the pandemic I have been using Lori exclusively and I give her name out for all referrals. So when people call in, since I no longer do the document retrieval for any national archives except for Kansas City, now Lori gets all of my referral work and she does all of the work for HBCD.

John:

Lori Burdock-Miller. If people did want to contact you, lori, how would they do that?

Lori Berdak Miller:

The best way for me is to contact me at redbirdresearch at gmailcom for the St Louis Cardinals, of course, and lori at redbirdresearchcom.

John:

Okay.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Those are two options you have.

John:

We'll make sure those are in the show notes so laurie was talking about a couple things.

Kathleen:

I want to make sure I I I mentioned originally we were all working on this area called page street, which was nothing like what we get to work with now if you're going to the National Archives, even as a visitor. But, lori, do they? Allow visitors now at the National Archives like they used to, where you could set up and anyone could sign up for a table. To come and do their own image capturing.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Well, what they're processing now is you need to go to naragov and you will look. There's a site about doing research and what you have to do is an orient. Well, in the olden days you came and did it. You made an appointment in orientation in the building on a PowerPoint. Now you have to go online and do the orientation and do the quiz and you will print off the certificate. And after you get that done, then you will contact the archives specialist and set up an appointment to come in and look at the records and then you will also submit the names of the people you're trying to find files on.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Because of that 1973 fire, you might not have a file or else the file might have to go through through preservation and that can take some time. So what I would do is you know, go to NARAgov, go to that site, do the quiz, help you pass it. It's just the rules and regulations of going to any of the National Archives and once you do that, it's good for any of the National Archives locations. That certificate and it's good for one year. You have to renew it every year.

John:

Lori, have you always been interested in research?

Lori Berdak Miller:

I've always been into history and so when I graduated high school I was going to be a travel agent. So I went to Columbia College in Columbia, missouri, for two years and got a travel degree and that's when the computer system was starting in travel agencies. So I worked for a travel agency that summer and thought I think I want to continue and get my history degree Transferred over to University of Missouri, st Louis, and got my bachelor's in history and I worked in collections and exhibits in the library when I was a student. So I've always been into research, looking up stuff. I always my family always said oh, mom, you're always googling something, try to get the answer for something, or looking up. I said, but I gotta know these things.

Lori Berdak Miller:

I was, you know so, and like driving down the highway, you know, you see something, gotta pull off and go look at that, and so it's's. It's always been in me. My, I think, to my dad with his military background, you know he kind of like got my interest in looking up stuff more. So I think a lot of that interest came from my dad. If I can learn more, I like to do that. I like to take zoom classes. I like to take stuff so I can keep on adding to my knowledge and, being in different organizations and groups that I can get my additional knowledge added on to.

John:

That sounds very similar, that's why we're sisters. Yeah, where she comes from as well. It's always the Googling. It's always putting something into the brain box.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Well, and it's nice to make money, it's nice to add to the income of the family, but to me, my reward is helping the people. You know I it's like I get personal relationships with people. I mean I, I feel like I, I like to make a relationship with my customers.

John:

I don't feel as customers. I told you it was normal, Lori. I have a question.

Kathleen:

I have another question. Kind of off topic, but just because I know that I still like using National Personnel Records Center and I know they don't really use that anymore.

Lori Berdak Miller:

When did that happen? Well, people see, everybody lumps the building as NPRC. It's the National Archives. Nprc is under the National Archives, which people don't understand. They go oh, I need to get my records from NPRC. No, a lot of people do not realize there's the 62-year rule, the archival rule, year rule, the archival rule. So anybody that gets to discharge 62 years from today's date, including reserve time and the extra time, it will determine if the record is on the archival side of the building, in the National Archives or in the NPRC side of the building. Nprc side of the building. So today, this year, it would be if anybody discharged in 1962 and back from today's date. So if you have somebody that say got out of the service in April 1st 1962, that record will be on the NPRC side of the building. It won't become archival until April 1st and then it will be on the NORIS side of the building.

Kathleen:

And that's because the archival records are publicst. And then it'll be on the north side of the building, and that's because the archival records are public domain.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Is that correct? Yes, yes. And then because even like, if I wanted to see a record on the NPRC side of the building, you have to get permission from the next of kin and if there's a death death, you have to have proof of death and those NPRC records. You can also do online. They're e-vet recs. You can go to the naragov site and you can fill out the form online because people are still waiting for things. So so don't.

Lori Berdak Miller:

So if you think you're going to, like you see veterans, I've seen them like there's a guard area you need to go through to go into the in the lobby area to get screened, and there'll be veterans that will come up and say, oh, I need my records, and they'll point to the box that you need to fill out this form and you're not going to see your records in person. Back in the olden days, when they used to have the NPRC little room, veterans could make an appointment with their family and actually physically see their records. At that time and that ended even before COVID they cut that out and now, of course, you can't see them at all.

John:

Kathleen is there, because of course in my head I'm thinking about the National Archives in Kansas City. Is there something analogous to the NPRC there?

Kathleen:

No, except everything still has the the four-year or public record 62 years. So that is standard across through an entire federal government. And the reason I'm thinking I never really knew the difference because I required all of that for all my clients. They all had to sign a document, whether or not it was public that I had permission to pull it. So it was pretty much the same form, um, and they still had to have proof for me that I'm pulling a form that they should have. But, unlike Lori John, we only have to go a mile and a half down the road. It takes us about. You guys can walk more, yeah it's it not much worse.

John:

We'll be able to take the light rail down there, I think in a few years but yeah, it's not too far at all.

Kathleen:

Everything else we do, our PO Box and everything else.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Well, I know where I'm camping at when I come to KC next time for the Czechoslovakian conference next year. Oh, is that here? Yes, they're going to be in Kansas City next year. You know what?

Kathleen:

I did know that there is a librarian here at the Midwest Genealogy Center, who's very involved, iveta, who actually Iveta?

John:

Okay, lori, you're shaking your head. Do you know Iveta?

Lori Berdak Miller:

Yes, because I go every two years when they have the Czechoslovakian Genealogy Conference and to highlight it this coming July. Not that I can really afford it. I'm going to Slovakian genealogy conference and to highlight it this coming July. Not that I could really afford it, I'm going to Slovakia oh wow. And Helene Sensabaugh, who is arranging it, so last year doing you know her last year doing tours, she has like a 96 to 98 percent rate of matching you with relatives wow so I am so excited for that and then I'm also going to be, if we can arrange it.

Lori Berdak Miller:

I did a file for a gentleman of a Slovak that got the Medal of Honor during World War I and he was killed in 1919. And he's from Bratislava. He was from Bratislava and of course you know, people there don't really move a whole lot, they kind of like, and so I made a copy of the file, which is like 200 and something pages, and I'm we're hoping that I can present it to the family while I'm locally there, that'll be beautiful so that's gonna weigh down my suitcase, but what the heck?

John:

yeah, really, who cares?

Lori Berdak Miller:

right, that's what it cares I'll have more room for souvenirs.

Kathleen:

I think, think you're going to love that tour. I knew that the conference was coming because Iveta and two other people went hotel and conference looking last month.

Lori Berdak Miller:

So I'm going to actually start taking Slovak language lessons starting this Wednesday on.

John:

Zoom, that was my next question, actually, that was going to be my next question.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Kalachi, pierogies, kabl is, so I know the important words of life.

John:

Yeah, I think.

Kathleen:

I got pierogi out of that.

John:

Kathleen, where else do you want so?

Kathleen:

we did the who. Who is Lori? We did what does she do? When she started? You mentioned you go five days a week. What does that look like?

Lori Berdak Miller:

What a day in the life. Well, when you go to the archives, you're allowed to put in 12 requests a day and you're allowed to see 12 files a day, so it's no problem putting the 12 in a day. Is this? They need more staff in the room, which hopefully they'll get approval to hire some more people, because they've been shorthanded sometimes with people being sick or children being sick, so one day there's like three or four staff members out.

Lori Berdak Miller:

And when you have that you know they need to go through the. What they do is they get the files pulled. They have to go through the files and redact them from information we're not allowed to see, like social security numbers. It used to be mental illness was redacted from a file. This is a different item. So that takes time for them to go through a file. I mean I had a file the other day five inches thick so for them to go through that whole file is going to take hours.

Lori Berdak Miller:

So you might go in and you might only have three or four files. You might not have your 12 files. So I go through, make my copies of my files and then if there's an opening they have microfilm readers in the room. You can make appointments either for a microfilm or files. But if there is a microfilm reader and they know I've done all my files that are there for the day, I'm allowed to go over to do microfilm and that's where I can trace people in microfilm morning reports, which is the daily report of a unit, and that is helpful because if the file got destroyed by the fire, if you have a unit you can find that person and trace them all through the war and that's what I did for my husband years ago when I started my business. Because my father-in-law was in World War II, his file was destroyed in the fire.

Lori Berdak Miller:

And my brother-in-law's found in his wallet after he died. He had a little copy of his discharge and Ed never shared. He said he was in the tank battalion and Ed never shared, he just said he was in the tank battalion. So with that information I was able to trace Ed from boot camp at Camp Crowder and then going across Battle of Bald, help, liberate Concentration Camp and then come back through Fort Dix. So I copied anything with Ed's name, location changes and all this and so I spiral bounded into a book and gave it to my husband for Christmas one year and it was probably about two inches thick. One time I had a guy doing a family reunion and he wanted his uncle's two files that were in the parachute infantry regiment. They were told that they were destroyed. Well, I put in a request, got the two two files back. There's at least 50 pages that each of them preservation could do.

Kathleen:

Wow.

Lori Berdak Miller:

So, and even if it's this one piece of paper like I'm doing a client now and nobody knows what unit he was in they just said I think he was in officer training. Well, the two pieces of paper I got it was a dental record and it had this unit on it, exactly and just like having that unit is like hallelujah. It wasn't because he did officer training for like six weeks but now I had this unit. So now I'm tracing them in the morning reports and it's like what mainly my day is. I'm there, you know, from 9am when they open till 4pm when they close.

Kathleen:

And I, as I tell people always, when you pick one document, you can normally come up with three questions or three pieces of information. Something's there, and one of the things I tell people also is that there's nothing but the pay voucher. They'll say it was burnt in a fire. We have the last pay voucher and they don't want to pay it because it's like $20. And my thing is that you don't know what's on that document.

Lori Berdak Miller:

It shows that they did foreign service. You know, it might be this interesting, like letters in the files. I do a talk on genealogical treasures in military files and I love doing that talk because people don't realize all the items that are in a file, that for genealogists especially, that we are so excited. I mean this, I think that's what makes me different than the other researchers in the room. I mean one time I found a birth certificate. Well, the lady who first go back the, the daughter of the veteran, wrote a letter asking for a copy of her dad's file and she was told there was no file. So then I'm looking at this file because I was doing it for, I think, a military collector or something. It wasn't for her and I thought I got to contact this lady because I got her dad's file and there's at least, you know, 10 or 12 pages in here and there's a birth certificate in here too, which is really important for genealogy. So I saw that she was in Pittsburgh and she has sent the letter like six or seven years previously. So I went, I googled, you know, trying to find this. She lived north of Pittsburgh and like a pet store or something, so I ended up calling this pet store and I said is so-and-so working there? And they said, oh yeah, she's the owner. And I said could I speak to her? I said, great, so I get her.

Lori Berdak Miller:

She gets on the phone, I said, and she goes, hello. And I said, hi, my name's Lori Burdick Miller. I'm a military researcher in St Louis and I just want you to know that I have your dad's military file. And she was like totally silent. And she comes back and she goes really. And I said, yeah, and she goes.

Lori Berdak Miller:

I was told there wasn't a file. I said, yeah, there is a file. And I said, and I want you to know, there's a birth certificate in it. And she was quiet. Again, she goes really. And I said well, my dad was from Western PA and your dad was. They lived in the same general area, coal mining area. And she goes yeah, oh my gosh. I said, well, if you give me your address, I'm just going to send it to you. I'm not going to charge you for it or anything. I just want you to have this because I think it's so important. And she goes well, we always wondered what our real last name was, because he kind of Americanized it. So, no problem. So she goes. Well, do you have any animals? I said no, we live in a small villa now and I said I have grand dogs and that she goes. Oh okay, so I send her the stuff Like three weeks later.

Lori Berdak Miller:

I get a box full of dog treats, but to me it wasn't getting you know, I wasn't expecting anything from her. But these are things you can find in files that people don't know, and that's what I tell genealogists. You know, a military file has so much to it, and when you find things like that and I mean it's nice tracing people the military stuff, but then if you can find the personal touches too in a file, so that was one of my excitement days.

Kathleen:

Well, giving somebody, you're giving somebody a last name but reconstructing military records is more than just giving the facts. It's like genealogy is more than just giving the facts, the dates, and there's a human behind it. And what laurie does is is extraordinary, because a lot of document retrievers are just copying it and sending the file back or they don't do that extra that you get when you just have a small bit of curiosity when you research.

Lori Berdak Miller:

Yeah, it is. I had one. I was doing I was tracing because there was not much of a file, so I was tracing morning reports. I saw the guy died in Luxembourg and I have a customer, one of my early customers lives in Luxembourg. So I and I said, is there any way you can go to the cemetery and take a picture of the tombstone? You know whether it be in National Cemetery, it might not be. He goes, can you get a picture of the guy? And I said, well, I'll contact the family. So they sent me. You know him in uniform, so I sent that over to Daniel. He ends up going to the cemetery and they have the military markers there aren't raised like art. You know, black printer, that's this white on white. So they have a box of sand from the normandy beaches so he rubs into the name, he puts the picture at the bottom of the tombstone in a bouquet of flowers and takes a picture for me so I could give it to the family oh, how sweet, isn't that precious, but the family wasn't really overexcited about it

Lori Berdak Miller:

but I got a copy of it still, but I just thought you know it well, you know getting closure to the family. You know this is know that he is still being noticed there, even if he's across the sea, the ocean, wherever, he or she will always be remembered. So, and I think that's the main thing about military research, you're doing it for the remembrance of the veteran and to honor that veteran and honor their family that sacrificed, maybe their families, not even by death but time away from the family to do their service always a huge sacrifice.

John:

Um, let's do. Let's say thank you to laurie uh very much for uh spending time with us and letting us know, kind of what a day in the life of uh a premier researcher looks like well.

Lori Berdak Miller:

thank you for the honor of letting me be on your guys' podcast here. I really appreciate it and, like I said, if I can help anybody, I just like to help people. That's my main goal.

Kathleen:

Thanks, Lori.

John:

Well, congratulations, you've made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree webinars. Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca Brandt, our part-time arctophile and full-time sucrologist, for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hittin' the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisknuckle and the Parliaments Watch for their next appearance at the Ratzkeller behind the Student Union at Spelman College. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and, of course, buzzsprout. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast, so stop by our Facebook page at Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen and let us know.

People on this episode

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Kathleen Brandt

Host
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John Brandt

Co-host