Hello! My name is Michael Ritchie and I'm an 11th generation native Texan.

My wife and I have spent several years (at the time of this writing) cleaning veteran gravestones in rural cemeteries across Texas. This has led us to learn some very interesting things, but has also stoked our passion for the Texas Rangers.

We have compiled a NON-OFFICIAL list of all the Texas Ranger gravesites that have been marked by the Former Texas Ranger's Association. They conduct honor ceremonies and install handmade iron crosses at the gravesite of DOCUMENTED Texas Rangers. At the time of writing, that list is 688.

We have also dug through and researched the Indian War Pension Records for Texas Rangers. Due to early 20th century legislation, Texas Rangers were considered FEDERAL frontier troops and therefore could pull a pension from the federal government. From these, we have located the gravesites of an additional 375 Texas Rangers across Texas and the nation. We are working with the FTRA to mark as many of these gravesites as possible.

Another pet project of ours has been to document, digitize, and publish online copies of all of the WWII service books that were complied across Texas immediately after WWII. These contain service photos, training information, theaters of operation, awards, and discharge dates for hundreds of thousands of WWII veterans from Texas. As of the end of 2019, we have dropped off the first batch of books to be digitized by the University of North Texas and permanently hosted on their online Portal to Texas History (the largest Texas History archive in the world).

Once these are available ONLINE AND FOR FREE I will start cropping photos and bio's and adding to deceased veteran memorials on FindAGrave. It will take many years, but I believe it to be a worthy goal.

As you can probably gather from the rest of this bio, I deeply feel that the service information for the countless men and women that have sacrificed for Texas should be FREE and OPEN to the public. This is the reasoning behind all of our projects. Please fee free to share and photos or information I publish online.

Hello! My name is Michael Ritchie and I'm an 11th generation native Texan.

My wife and I have spent several years (at the time of this writing) cleaning veteran gravestones in rural cemeteries across Texas. This has led us to learn some very interesting things, but has also stoked our passion for the Texas Rangers.

We have compiled a NON-OFFICIAL list of all the Texas Ranger gravesites that have been marked by the Former Texas Ranger's Association. They conduct honor ceremonies and install handmade iron crosses at the gravesite of DOCUMENTED Texas Rangers. At the time of writing, that list is 688.

We have also dug through and researched the Indian War Pension Records for Texas Rangers. Due to early 20th century legislation, Texas Rangers were considered FEDERAL frontier troops and therefore could pull a pension from the federal government. From these, we have located the gravesites of an additional 375 Texas Rangers across Texas and the nation. We are working with the FTRA to mark as many of these gravesites as possible.

Another pet project of ours has been to document, digitize, and publish online copies of all of the WWII service books that were complied across Texas immediately after WWII. These contain service photos, training information, theaters of operation, awards, and discharge dates for hundreds of thousands of WWII veterans from Texas. As of the end of 2019, we have dropped off the first batch of books to be digitized by the University of North Texas and permanently hosted on their online Portal to Texas History (the largest Texas History archive in the world).

Once these are available ONLINE AND FOR FREE I will start cropping photos and bio's and adding to deceased veteran memorials on FindAGrave. It will take many years, but I believe it to be a worthy goal.

As you can probably gather from the rest of this bio, I deeply feel that the service information for the countless men and women that have sacrificed for Texas should be FREE and OPEN to the public. This is the reasoning behind all of our projects. Please fee free to share and photos or information I publish online.