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macon caldwell overton photo

LGibbs

I am trying to locate a photo of Captain Macon Caldwell Overton from Union Point GA.  The USS Overton battleship was named after him.  He was a member of the cadet band at University of Georgia in 1911.  I have located photos of his mother and the USS Overton battleship but would really like to locate and pinpoint a photo of him.  He is my great grand uncle on my mother's side.  

Respectfully,

Lynn Gibbs

  • 0

    Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!

    The Still Picture Branch does not have portraits/headshots or group photos taken during training. According to the Military, graduates’ formal photos, both individual and group, were taken by private local commercial photographers and offered for sale at the time taken. Unfortunately those items rarely became part of official military records nor were they retained by the commercial photographers responsible for shooting the photos. 

    The Still Picture Branch has many candid photos of U.S. Military personnel but in most of them, there is no identification of the people shown. Please note that, unfortunately, the Still Picture Branch also does not house any military yearbooks. 

    We have noted your interest in photographs related to Captain Macon C. Overton, who served in the US Marine Corps during World War I. A preliminary search was conducted throughout various series within our Records of the U.S. Marine Corps (RG 127), such as 127-PX, 127-G, and 127-PG. A search was also conducted in the series 120-AC: Photographs of Recipients of Allied Valor Awards, 1917–1919, however, we unfortunately were unable to locate any images of Captain Overton. 

    A preliminary search was also conducted for Marines in France within our U. S. Army Signal Corps (111-SC) subject index, which can be found on-site in our research room. I was able to locate a photograph that mentions Captain Overton in the caption that may be of interest. This image has been digitized and is available in the catalog here: Local ID: 111-SC-15537. As a note, there are some digital objects in our catalog that do not have metadata information or has not been OCR'ed (optical character recognition), and therefore are not searchable by keyword.

    There may be more images in our National Archives Catalog that may be of interest. For more information on World War I Photographs in the National Archives, you can visit our website here: https://www.archives.gov/research/still-pictures/world-wars to read more about the Still Picture Branch’s holdings.

    You may also wish to explore the photographs listed in the "Official AEF Catalogue" online. The photos within the Catalogue are also located in our Army Signal Corps photographic series of records, 111-SC: Photographs of American Military Activities, ca. 1918 - ca. 1981. To find the photos in the AEF Catalogue linked above, you can navigate to our National Archives Catalog, then you may then just plug the number found in the Catalogue into our catalog's search box, prefixed with 111-SC. For example, the number "22874" can be found by searching "111-SC-22874" with quotations.

    Please note, that nearly all of the World War I photography in 111-SC has been digitized and is in the process of being uploaded to our catalog. You can search the series as a whole by navigating to the series description linked above and clicking the blue "Search within this series" button. You can then enter any keywords into the search bar, however, please note that some captions may not appear in the search and must be viewed on the image itself. Here is a sample search for more photographs related to Marines in France. If you find images through the database, you may download what is available online.

    If you have not done so already, you can request his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). It is possible that a photograph could be attached to the OMPF. For more information about how to request personnel records from the National Archives' National Personnel Record Center (NPRC), please visit our website here: https://www.archives.gov/veterans. Additionally, you can try searching the Military Yearbook Project at https://militaryyearbookproject.org/.

    Lastly, the Textual Branch has records that may be of interest, such as a Cablegram Sent from General John J. Pershing that describes Overton’s awards (NAID: 209255024). If you'd like to contact the Textual II Reference Branch regarding their holdings such as these, you may email them at: archives2reference@nara.gov.

    We invite you to continue the conversation with community members on History Hub, but should you have follow up questions for the staff at Archives II, please email us at stillpix@nara.gov so that we can assist you further.

    We hope this assists you with your research!


    Sincerely,
    Still Picture Branch
    Special Media Division (RRS)
    [RRSS-24-68110-HS]