Help Contribute by Scanning U.S. Coast Guard Records from the Vietnam War in the Innovation Hub!

Today's post comes from Jessica Soden, National Archives Technician & former Innovation Hub Coordinator Detailee During my time as the Innovation Hub Coordinator detailee, the National Archives added deck logs from United States Coast Guard cutter vessels (USCGC) involved in the Vietnam War (RG 26, Entry 330; NAID 559642) to the list of records that … Continue reading Help Contribute by Scanning U.S. Coast Guard Records from the Vietnam War in the Innovation Hub!

National Archives at Boston Collaborates to Digitize Over 900 Popular Photos

It’s a fact that the National Archives holds billions of records. It’s also true that, even with the awesome level of description that staff accomplish each year, it’s a challenge to make items available online as fast as we’d like. Large scale digitization partnerships help, as does every individual record scanned by Citizen Archivists in … Continue reading National Archives at Boston Collaborates to Digitize Over 900 Popular Photos

Introduction to Military Records at the National Archives

This year the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will host a Virtual Genealogy Fair on September 3–4, 2013. As part of the planned programming, the Virtual Fair will include introductory sessions on civilian and military records at NARA that are useful for genealogical research. Military service, of course, represents one of the major aspects … Continue reading Introduction to Military Records at the National Archives

Reminiscing with Vietnam Veterans at Archives II

At the National Archives, you never know who will come in to do some research.  A few weeks ago, the Still Pictures and Motion Pictures research rooms hosted about 30 Vietnam Veterans who were interested in researching the records of the Department of Army Special Photography Office- or DASPO for short.  The best part about … Continue reading Reminiscing with Vietnam Veterans at Archives II

Family Tree Friday: Online RIPs for Military and Civilian records

The more we interact with the public, whether at national conferences or NARA-sponsored events such at the annual Genealogy Fair, the more we hear how much researchers would like to see our finding aids available online.  Well, this seems like a good opportunity to point out that two of our most popular genealogy Reference Information … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Online RIPs for Military and Civilian records

Family Tree Friday: Confederate POW Deaths & Burials Online

As a way to tie together all the Confederate prisoner of war records that we've discussed over the last several weeks, I thought you might want to know about a specific record the War Department compiled in the early 20th century to document all of the Confederate POWs who died in Federal custody during the … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Confederate POW Deaths & Burials Online

Ask Away on #Ask Archivists Day!

The National Archives will be here to answer all your archival questions on June 9th!  Known as Ask Archivists Day, this worldwide event on Twitter will bring together the people who collect, care for, and research archival records in one space where questions from general research practices to whether a repository has your ancestor's information … Continue reading Ask Away on #Ask Archivists Day!

"What Are You Working On, Tina Ligon?"

Ever wonder what exciting new projects the many employees at NARA are working on? The “What are You Working On?” blog feature aims to introduce a variety of NARA employees and highlight some of the exciting projects we are working on around the agency. Check for this blog series on Wednesdays! This week, we introduce … Continue reading "What Are You Working On, Tina Ligon?"

Family Tree Friday: How to make sense out of a Civil War pension file…with some online help!

Have you ever looked at a Civil War pension file and wondered, what does this all REALLY mean? More specifically, have you ever tried to figure out what each document or slip of paper actually was, where it came from, and what relevance it had to the file as a whole?  Believe it or not, … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: How to make sense out of a Civil War pension file…with some online help!

Family Tree Friday: Check out AAD for 20th century military databases.

As a way to wrap up the discussion about records relating to military service in the 20th century, it would be a good idea to check out the electronic records available on NARA's Access to Archival Databases (AAD) . AAD is an online resource available on the NARA web site at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ and contains a … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Check out AAD for 20th century military databases.