Merged army serial numbers

In addition, the scanning system was unable to interpret , groups of one or more punch cards within the valid ranges. Access Restrictions: Unrestricted. This processing combined the first two reads of the punch card images into a single "best guess" record and stripped the files of the box header records, end of file and blank records. The box and roll data were placed at the end of the cleaned up record. Each record contains the combined readings from the first two scans of each enlistment punch card although each card was scanned up to ten times.

While these additional scans may have produced additional information from the card, NARA did not use a more complex algorithm to include the information from these subsequent scans to create a better "guess" than what currently appears in the series "World War II Army Enlistment Records, National Archives and Records Administration.

Although this series was created in , it contains information from the period through For example can we find out when they joined the military? Both of these individuals died during the war. So no military records available to find out their past. For example Lavallee was in Artillery before he went for training to fly planes. He died in a training accident. So they, military, have him assigned to the US Air Corp but no record of when he join the shore battery of Artillery here in Massachusetts.

What is probably going to be the best use to you is the Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File Enlistment Records which covers most enlistees from It's searchable by serial number. It will give you the place of enlistment, the date of enlistment, their grade, branch, year of birth, civilian occupation, and component of the Army, among other information.

While the Army and Air Force records from to were effected by the St. Louis fire in We have been able to reconstruct some of the military service of Francis Lavallee.

You may request this record by completing a Standard Form and mailing it to:. Unfortunately, the record of Joseph Sivigny was completely destroyed in our fire. You may also request both of their Individual Deceased Personnel Files by writing to:.

I discovered that if the person had applied to the VA for a pension his service record may have been sent to them. The bulk of the records are for the period through About 4 percent of the records contain data originally recorded on Enlisted Reserve Corps Statistical cards, and the bulk of those records are from and In general, the records contain the serial number, name, state and county of residence, place of enlistment, date of enlistment, grade, Army branch, term of enlistment, longevity, nativity place of birth , year of birth, race, education, civilian occupation, marital status, height and weight before , military occupational specialty and later , and component of the Army.

As noted earlier, at the end of each "best guess" record appear the box and roll number of the microfilmed punch cards. To facilitate search and retrieval in the AAD resource, the file is split into two tables: a large file containing general Army enlistment records, including enlistees in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and a second with records of enlistees in the reserve corps.

Over time the enlistment card format changed, and the height and weight or military occupational specialty categories were recorded in the same columns on the original punch cards. Because there is no easy way to distinguish original data recorded on the two.

The Frequently Asked Questions developed especially for the World War II Army Enlistment Records File also provide a number of helpful tips and hints about technical data characteristics of various fields. Results will be returned from the Army serial number file and from all other series in AAD where appropriate. Alternatively, the user may go straight to the enlistment records by using the link under "Most Popular" or by choosing the categories for Military Personnel, World War II, or — The user next clicks on "search" to access either the Enlistment Records or the Reserve Corps Records.

This will bring up a page where the user may search these records. Using an individual's Army serial number may be the most efficient way to find a record.

Type the serial number in the search box without hyphens, submit the search, and a summary of the record with that serial number will appear.

Clicking the icon in the column titled "View Record" will display the full record, which will contain meanings for the coded data. To print a copy of any record, click "Print" at the top of the screen, and this will display the full record again in a format suitable for printing.

A common way to search for individual records is by name. Users should note that searches are not case sensitive even though entries are uppercase in the file. In making the records available in AAD, staff inserted " " for blanks that would normally appear between the last and first names and in other instances. The name column includes all possible parts of a name: surname, space, first name, space, middle initial, and SR, JR, 3rd, etc.

Names with "Mac," "Mc," "de," "Van," etc. Names with apostrophes, like O'Brien, usually do not have a space between the prefix and the rest of the name, i. When the full name was longer than the number of characters available in the name column, as much of the surname as possible is in the column, and initials were used for the first name.

AAD also allows for using wildcards in searches so that users can identify records even when unsure of name spelling or format.

For example, to find my grandfather's record, I entered "James N Tronolone" into the name search box. Alternatively, I could have simply entered "Tronolone" and selected his record from among the 23 records for persons with that last name in the enlistment table.

If the user is searching for a common name, the name can be combined with other fields, such as state or state and county, to narrow the search for an individual record. Users will often use the information retrieved in the AAD search, such as the serial number when not otherwise known, to request further information about their relative from the National Personnel Records Center. Because this file was originally designed for computer processing, data fields such as the state and county of residence, place of enlistment, civilian occupation, and marital status were represented by numeric codes rather than being spelled out.

These codes allowed for the uniform recording of repetitive data in a keypunch operation and for the efficient sorting and tabulation of the computer punch cards. AAD reinterprets the coded fields "in English" so that users can understand the information. The full record also links to notes on specific fields that more fully explain the meanings of codes. Another common search strategy is to find records of individuals who enlisted at a specific place or came from a specific county.

This requires searching AAD using one or more coded fields. The fields Residence: State; Residence: County; and Place of Enlistment are options on the main database search screen.

To search these fields, click on the "Select from Code List" link to bring up a window with a list of all the coded values. Select a value, and then click the "Submit" button.