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U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards now online

U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards now online

Ancestry has just published the draft cards from the Fourth Registration, or the "old man’s registration" for the U.S.’s involvement in World War II. The registration was conducted on 27 April 1942 and registered men who were born on or between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897 (age 45-64), who were not already in the military.

Information available on the cards includes:

  • name
  • age
  • birth date
  • birth place
  • residence
  • employer information
  • name/address of person who would always know the registrant’s whereabouts
  • physical description

First, identify your ancestors in Legacy who may be listed in the index.

  1. Click on the Search icon, and click on the Detailed Search tab.
  2. Add the following conditions, and click Create List.

Ww2search

The resulting list includes those men who you should now search for in this new database.

Legacy’s Research Guidance

In the next update of Research Guidance, you can locate an ancestor and check their Suggested Sources tab to automatically see if they may have registered for the draft. Then just click on the Online button and you’re taken directly to the database.

Click on the image below to see what it looks like in Legacy:

Ww2_1

Search the database.

Click here to begin searching the database.

Comments (4)

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  • AI
    Ann I.

    I also did not have any luck finding any of my “older” relatives in this new registration list. I checked on 9 names and not one showed up. Any ideas?

  • CY
    Carol Y

    The Ancestry description seems to indicate that these are ALL the records for New Jersey, but my grandfather and his brothers are not listed. Beyond the restriction that men already in the military were not included, does anyone know of another point of exclusion? Perhaps there are more records still to be added?
    C

  • GR
    Geoff Rasmussen

    Carrolyn, remember that it was known as the “old man’s registration” and that men between the ages of 45 and 64 were registered.

  • CM
    Carrolyn Miller

    Something is wrong! The article indicates it is regarding the WWII Draft Registration Cards and includes men born between 1877-1897. That would be men registering for WWI not WWII.

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