New WWII Veterans Archive

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The Schneider WWII Muskingum Veterans Archive page is now available on the Muskingum County Library System’s website.

The archive holds digital copies of Muskingum County individuals who were apart of World War II. According to Emerging Technologies Manager Sean Fennell there were 9000 people connected to the war and their information can be found on scanned cards in the archive.

Photo By: Quay DeVoll

“You are able to really see the lives of these heroic men and women come to life on these cards,” Fennell said. “It was hard to stay focused sometimes on creating the archive and doing the work, because the information, stories, and narratives that were told were so compelling.”

The cards are organized alphabetically by last name and the library still has the original cards in their possession.

“The cards were donated by Norris Schneider and he’s actually written a book as well based on these cards that he collected,” Fennell said. “He was an incredible historian and he donated these cards to the library.”

The book was titled ‘Muskingum County Men and Women in World War II’. These men and women could have been residents in Muskingum County for a few months or their whole life.

“9000 records of incredible veterans represented here on this website and it was an honor to work on this project and to honor the veterans that are from Muskingum County,” said Fennell.

The library has had the hard copies for a while and never quite knew how to give the community access to the cards without risking their current conditions.

“We thought digitizing them, preserving them in a way where generations upon generations would have access to this content.”

After deciding to digitize, the actual process to scan and create a new website page took about eight months. The archive page can be accessed through the Genealogy Library Tab on muskingumlibrary.org.