I’ve been recently turned on to the magic of ancestry.com, one of the best tools for researching WWI images I’ve yet to discover. I decided to start a search for one of the names written on the back of one of my better WWI images. Alex Lindell poses in his WWI French portrait photo showing off his missing finger – likely a battle wound received on October 18th, 1918 while he was with the 309th Infantry Regiment (78th Division) during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. After a search of draft cards through the National Archives, I came across a pair of WWI and WWII draft cards with the presumed identity of Alex Lindell. After comparing the signatures on both my photo and the draft cards, I realized I had a match! Success! His ASN was 2451963.

 

Alex served in Company H, 309th Infantry Regiment, 78th Division and was originally born in Oeland, Finland but eventually ended up in Brooklyn, NY. He was born on May 5th, 1889 and passed away just shy of the age of 61 on April 11th. 1950 where he was buried in Long Island National Cemetery. He was listed as being severely wounded in action on October 18th, 1918 where he presumably lost his finger as seen in the below photo.

 

Photo Colorized by the Photo Alchemist