Did your ancestors fight in the wars?

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I voted yes-other because I wasn't sure how to answer.
I do think this topic is interesting.

My paternal grandfather did fight a little in world war 2, he was mostly away from active conflict zones but he was still conscripted as part of the army, though he was a translator but I believe he also had to be trained to use a weapon.

I have ancestors who were tragically affected by conflicts around the Russian Revolution, and in the years that followed.
Though my ancestors were mennonite pacifists so wherever possible they signed up for non combative roles such as being a medic or forestry service or translator, both in Russia and in Canada.
But, that did not stop them from feeling the traumatic effects of it.

They were different experiences of course but I won't go into the details or I won't post this because it would be too long and confusing.

Multiple wars.

My mother's mother's father was a veteran of WWI in the Polish army who later worked in the country's defense department, a connection that aided his family's survival when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. They managed to flee to Hungary, something that, as Jews, was very hard to do successfully, as Hungary was an Axis power with anti-Semitic laws, and they sent most Jews seeking asylum right back into Poland, which was, at the time, practically a death sentence. But my grandmother's family got to stay in Hungary and spent the next several years in refugee camps among mostly non-Jewish Polish refugees. When the Nazis took over Hungary in 1944, my grandmother's father (the Polish military veteran) was sent to a POW camp while my grandmother (who was in her teens), her younger brother, and their mother were sent to a death camp in Austria, a hell-on-earth experience from which they barely survived.

My mother's father was also a Holocaust survivor originally from Poland.

My father's father was in the US military during WWII, but as a dentist, not a combatant.

My great-uncle went to the Western Front in August 1944, attached to the Canadians.

We had no idea he had been one of the first into Belsen. He had never talked about it. In 2015 he met one of the Jewish children whom he had liberated. He died two years later. A genuine hero.

I don't know of any ancestors of mine that fought in a war.

Dad wW1 and 2

All four of my great-grandfathers served as engineers and soldiers for Britain in WW1. They designed bridges and railways. Two were involved in combat at the Somme and Vimy Ridge. One of my great-uncles served for Britain in WW2, and my American uncle-by-marriage served in Vietnam. He developed profound PTSD and psychosis which led to their divorce and affected my entire family for many years. I remember some scary stories about his behaviour at the time but I was very young and didn't understand. I wish he'd received better trauma support.

I'm going to settle with the answer 'no'.

I had dug still found no war stories whatsoever.

Paternal grandpa's an electrician.
So is his dad. His mom's a teacher. I lived around with them in my younger years.
Grandpa's paternal grandad's a farmer, paternal grandma's one of those housewives, maternal grandma's a farmer as well and so does maternal grandpa.
Again with my grandma's grandparents and great grandparents.

Maternal grandpas's a musician and a farmer.
His dad's a fisherman. His mom's a housewife -- whom I had met once when she's still alive.
My maternal grandpa's grandparents are either farmers or fishermen or just works at home.
My maternal grandma's side is one of the luckier ones; mom's a teacher, dad's a merchant. Her paternal grandparent was one of those who ended up owning large hectares of land during war; he's the local politician that I passed down that particular social trait from.
Her maternal grandparents are also either a teacher or a farmer.

Aunts and uncles?
I ended up with more nurses/medical personnel, rare engineers/electricians, some managers and merchants, more teachers, musicians, laborers, occasional local politicians, even more farmers and fishermen or someone in vocational; whether being a cook, a seamstress/tailor, caretakers, clerical and maintenance jobs of varying kinds (and so far nothing to do with being involved in military) or being housewives/unemployed.

Both sides of my family seem to be one of those 'luckier ones' who ended up with owning lands during those times and able to pass it down to practically my grandparents/grand aunts and grand uncles to this day.

Well, the only soldier I've known in my family is that one paternal uncle that I've never met and left the country long before I was born.
No idea what war he fought, definately not the world wars and he's younger than my dad (not yet even 60).


Anything past my great great grandparents are, well, past beyond 1900s; no surprises if either or both sides of my ancestry did something shady in order to live a bit comfortably during Spanish Occupation...

Both my mom and dad's side of the family have a long history of being in the military, and most of those men have fought in wars. As far as recent ancestors.. My dad was in Vietnam, his father enlisted at 17 during the end of WW2, and his father was in WW1. My paternal grandma's dad was also in WW1. My mom's dad was in WW2 (though I'm not sure how much combat he saw.. he ended up with health related issues and service modified as a result, though issues not due to combat) and his father in WW1. My maternal grandmother's father never was in the military. He's the odd man out here.

My grandfather on my father's side did fight in WW1 and WW2. His brother is still considdered missing on Russian terrain. My grandfather got "lucky". He got hit by grenade-shrapnel during WW2 and got sent to a hospital. His unit got whiped out soon later, as far as I know. So he survived.

I don't know anything about my mom's father. He died shortly after I was born and she had hardly any contact with him. The second husband of my gandma on my mom's side was a full blown Nazi. Which is kind of understandable, considdering the circumstances of how he grew up. I don't know about his participation in the war, but I know he was proud of being "arian" and supported Hitler. (Which was mandatory, if you were to survive, of course. But Hitler's regime did better his way of life a bunch.)

My grandmother on my mom's side herself was a child during WW2 and told me about how she hid in cellars and how she went to school and how her friends started to disappear. I know that one aunt of her was dragged off to concentration-camp.

My grandmother on my dad's side was a nurse and as far as I remember, she met my grandfather during that time... But I'm not totally sure, because my grandfather was married to another woman before my gandmother and had a child with that woman, before she died of cancer.... and my aunt is not old enough to have been born during WW2, so... Maybe they met later on...

Had an ancestor who fought on the other side of the American Revolution. The British beefed up their forces in the rebellious colonies with mercenaries hired from the German state of Hesse. One of my ancestors was a Hessian mercenary captured in battle by George Washington. They didnt have big pow camps then. POWs were rented out as "indentured servants" (basically temporary slaves) to patriot farmers. While doing his stint as a laborer for a farmer he and the farmer's daughter fell in love. After the war the couple went back to the (then still non unified) Germany. One of their grandsons emigrated back to America in the 1840s and became an American.

A relative of an ancestor on some lineage died as a result of serving in the Civil War.
Shortly after the American Civil War France and Prussia fought each other in a war..resulting in Germany becoming a unified nation in 1870.

My grandad grew up in a family of German speaking immigrant farmers in Kansas so when the US entered the first world war the army used his language skill to interrogate German POWs. He also served as a combat infantryman. Had to recover from a poison gas attack (he is the only family member in living memory to actually suffer in a war).

My uncle was of the WWII generation but because he was a physicist he served by taking part in the Manhattan Project-helped build the A-bomb.

My dad was in the Navy in the Korean War. Watched the bombartment of Inchon from the deck of his destroyer.

Thankfully no one in the family has served in war since despite the fact that the US has had so darn many wars since (Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan).

My dad's dad was a member of the RCAF Coastal Command in a non-combat role.

I don't know about involvement of my mom's side of the family in any military service.

I am having trouble because I'm inclined to take the question literally.

How to read: "Did your ancestors fight in the wars?"

"fight"? Do you mean actually using weapons against the enemy? Or, how about just being in the combat zone during combat? Or, is being in the military during a war even if they were never in the area of active combat?

My Dad was in the U.S. Navy during the Korean war. He was onboard a U.S. Navy combat ship in the Korean combat theater during part of the war. He did not "fight", however...he cooked.

I'd argue support roles within the theatre still count as fighting.

The more removed from potential combat one gets the less they can be considered to have fought.

I would really like to vote in this poll, but I don’t really know my ancestors that well since I was adopted. But you never know

Yes, the poll says "fight in the wars" - but that was because I couldn't think how to express what I meant.

I'm more interested in whether they were personally involved in the war in the sense of having a threat of death hanging over them, which could have involved being sent overseas to serve, or it could have involved being present in a war zone, or being displaced from home and family by war.

Thank you for the clarification. My Dad's presence in the Korean War combat zone has been recorded.

Though I will note here it was not his intent to be in the war zone. It was his intent to take Quarter-Master training because he wanted a career preparing food. Things just didn't go they way he planned.