Citation Saturday - Military Draft and Enlistment Records

Military records are a wonderful way of finding out information about an ancestor. Draft registration and enlistment forms normally give address, occupation, name of spouse, birth date and sometimes height, weight, hair and eye color. It's a smorgasborg of goodies. But so long as you have the source up on your computer screen - make sure you create the map to find your way back.

This post will cover three military-related resources, WWI and WWII draft registration cards, and WWII enlistment records.  It will also cover two ways of putting together a citation: 1) using a format created and accepted by genealogists everywhere and 2) using the cite many geneaology websites create for you.  Gotta love #2!


WWI Draft Registration

Because I already had the record and the cite, I am going to use my second great-uncle, Paul Kirmse's WWI draft registration record as an example.  Below is the front and back of the card.

If you use Thomas MacEntee's citation examples (and he is always a reliable source) he will tell you that the skeleton of the cite looks like this:

World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed [date]), [Name], serial no. _____, order no. _____, Draft Board __, [County] County, [State]; citing World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, NARA microfilm publication M1509; Family History Library Roll No. _______.

Using that form, the cite for my great-uncle Paul's draft registration card would be:

World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, "digital images, Ancestry.com (http://bit.ly/19Ritsf: accessed 25 March 2015), Paul Kirmse, serial no. 912, order no. A1290, Draft Board 177, Queens County, Maspeth, NY; citing World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, NARA microfilm publication M1509. 

I left off the Family History roll number becuase I was citing a resource on Ancestry.com. If you are using "canned" citation formats as your guide, remember to adapt the cite to the match the repository of your resource.  Canned formulas are a great guideline - but remember, they are just a guideline. Don't be afraid to get creative if you have to.  Remember, there is no such thing as too much informaiton when it comes to citing a resource.

When I went to FamilySearch to find this record during my "do-over", I got the following:

Ah!  The gift of not having to write the citation yourself.  The grey box at the bottom of the image is labled Citing this Record and the whole thing is done for you.  How great is that.  If you wanted to use Thomas's citation format for WWI draft registration records, you will see that it is not all that different (one is for Ancestry.com and the other for FamilySearch).  Bottom line - either one works, and if you get a ready-made cite done for you, then all you have to do is copy that cite and paste it into whatever form, software or program you are using to build your tree and keep track of your records. 

Kudos to FamilySearch and other genealogy websites that are now providing these citations.  They are doing this because so many family researchers are not creating citiatons and this service leaves us with no excuse for forgetting them.

So let's move on to WWII

This is my maternal grandfather's WWII Draft Registration Card.  You met him, and my maternal grandmother, briefly during last week's Citation Saturday stroll through Find A Grave. Once again, I found this during one of my Archive's searches and didn't create a citation. Bad, bad, bad genealogist.

So I searched and found it on Ancestry.com.  Using Thomas's format for the resources on Ancestry.com:

World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed [DATE]), [NAME], serial no. [#], [COUNTY] County, [STATE], dated [DATE]; citing Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration, NARA Record Group 147.

The citation looks like this:

World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942, "digital images, Ancestry (http://bit.ly/1IwlYzy: accessed 25 March 2015), John Herman Alexander Voigt, serial no. 1745, Hartford, CT, dated 27 April 1942; citing Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration, NARA Record Group 147.

I didn't go back and look for this on Family Search, but I'm willing to bet it would give me a ready-made citation.  Ancestry.com didn't give me a ready-made citation, but rather a link I could paste into my research.  Links are only as good as the integrity of the website page being linked to. That can change.  Better to go with a written citation.

Last but not least, we have - WWII Enlistment Records

My Uncle George enlisted - so his record is a handy one to use as an example.

Above you will see the information I got when I looked for this in Ancestry.com. There does not appear to be any images of the actual forms used for the enlistment process - just the "record".  I have looked and have not had much luck - but I am thinking the next time I am in Washington, DC I will make use of that library card and go back to the LOC, or maybe the Archives, and see what I can find.

As you can see, this resources also gives you a lot of valuable information, Including Source information. What it doesn't really give you is a full citation you can copy and paste. Again, using Thomas MacEntee as a realiable source, he suggests the following format:

U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946, database, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed [Date]), [Name], enlistment date [Date], [City], [State]; citing Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946 [Archival Database]; World War II Army Enlistment Records; Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group __. Using that format, my citation would look like this: U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946, database, Ancestry (www.Ancestry.com [http://ancstry.me/1BOkUkO]), accessed 26 March 2015), George J. Doyon, enlistment date 27 Nov 1942, Hartford, CT; citing Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946 [Archival Database ARC: 1263923]; World War II Army Enlistment Records; Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 64.

Seems like a lot of stuff ... but none of it is hard, particularly when the format of the citations is readily available from folks like Thomas MacEntee. And it really doesn't take much time to do this as you go along. A couple of minutes, max. But if you don't do it, and then have to go back and re-do it in order to build the citations you failed to write up the first time around, then I can tell you from experience - not so much fun.

Good genealogical practices are not for sissies.  If you are going to spend all this time - and probably some $$$$, you might as well do it right the first time!  Have I said that before?  So get out there and have fun digging up some draft and enlistment records and CITE THOSE SOURCES!

-- submitted by Denise Doyon