I want to share a little story that happened 2 days ago.

I was bored during my lunch break. Having looked through recent PF threads, I didnt find anything worth spending time on and moved on to diorama.ru.
Again, still quite bored, I settled on a blog of one painter, painting exclusively WW2 germans.

Not my thing, but discussion promised some hint of curiosity, even to pick up some useful painting ideas.
As WW2 subjects often do, the blog attracted a plethora of comments and in one of them there was a talk about some heroic deed of some Russian soldier, and a link to outside Russian resource with a scan of his original award documents - an archive of documents, called Deeds of People or something like that.

Bored still, I typed my grandfathers name into it - why not?
To cut story short, 10 minutes later I was not bored at all .

In front of me, I had scans of original award documents (with description of events) of my:

Maternal grandfather - medal for bravery, near Brno, when he managed to drive out a truck with 16 wounded soldiers under fire to get out of ambush.
Paternal grandfather - medal for battle merit, for repeated evacuation and medical treatment of wounded airfield personnel under bombardment and airstrikes.

Paternal great grandfather - Order of Red Star, who was an Artillery division commander in 1942 near Stalingrad and continued to shoot German Tank division in direct sight, whilst surrounded and under airstrikes, and after loosing all guns managed to get remaining personnel out somehow. They burnt 16 German tanks in the process.

I have seen these medals and order as a kid, but it turns out no one in my family knew the stories behind them as these guys didnt tell much at all...

Jaw on the floor....

So there is my story about idle browsing/ idle thumbs.

Great story.
Although not an ancestor following a bit of browsing earlier this week I discovered a WWI NZ soldier's records online. His next of kin is listed as living a couple of miles away from here. Worth a bit more research I think.

Roger.

Wow, two 'Grandfathers' and a 'Great-Grandfather', all listed with honours. That has to be very special and a source of pride for yourself. That was some worthwhile browsing!

Regards,

Mark

Late on this one. I too have found some family gems through google. For all its sins, the net is a treasure for historians.

Colin

I don't have a family, nobody wanted me so I was passed from pillar to post until at 7 yrs old I decided to bring myself up, now I am married, have 3 kids, 10 grandchildren, and played santa at a salvation army hall because they couldn't find anyone to do it,had a great time. and I am a member of planet figure. life cannot get any better. merry Christmas and happy new year, and if you find nobody wants you, and you have nowhere to turn, contact me/ iv been there. / badger