On December 12, 1942, 2nd Lt. Jack E. Williams and his crew were flying over the coast of France when, according to his report, “We hit the ground; that is, made a crash landing, at 12:40, after having been violently attacked by fighters.” The actions of Williams and his crewmates following the crash are documented … Continue reading World War II Escape and Evasion Reports are now available online
When I started this series of blog posts on immigration records, I mentioned that the Federal government began documenting alien arrivals in 1820, in fulfillment of the requirements of the Steerage Act of 1819. So, can you still find any information in federal records about alien arrivals PRIOR to 1820? As a matter of fact, … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Landing reports of alien immigrants, 1798-1828
Today, guest blogger Elizabeth Carrington from the National Archives at Kansas City has written a special NARA Coast-to-Coast post announcing the opening of over 300,000 Alien Case Files from the records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I find when I approach new records what I really want to understand is how a particular item … Continue reading The National Archives at Kansas City Opens over 300,000 Alien Case Files for Research!
Welcome to “NARA Coast to Coast,” the newest NARAtions feature which will bring you information about federal records from National Archives locations all over the country. I am Corinne Porter, an archivist in the National Archives, Office of Regional Records Services in College Park, MD. For this inaugural post I decided to go in a … Continue reading NARA Coast to Coast: Native American records across America
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, Jason Clingerman?"
Continuing on the theme of vital records that were intentionally created by the federal government--in this case the U.S. military. You may not be aware that many military posts maintained their own burial records for deaths that occurred among both military personnel and (sometimes) the nearby civilian population. Among the many responsibilities of the post … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: More military vital statistics–quartermasters' burial records
In a previous blog post, my colleague Katherine talked about vital statistics that sometimes show up in federal records. I thought it might be worthwhile to point out that, under specific circumstances, vital records were also intentionally created by the government, particularly the U.S. military. In our vast collection of records relating to 19th-century military forts--all … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Vital Statistics in Military Records
We joined Flickr last summer as a new way to share our photos with the public. These photos are also available via our online catalog, the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). From the iconic Mathew Brady Civil War photographs to the stirring images from the Environmental Protection Agency's DOCUMERICA endeavor in the 1970s, thousands of people … Continue reading Tech Tuesday: Machine Tags on Our Flickr Images
So have you ever wondered what all the numbers are that NARA associates with its records? If you have checked the Archival Research Catalog recently you might have noticed that one of our numbers has a new name. The former Inventory Identifier has been renamed the Inventory Entry Number. We heard from several researchers who … Continue reading What do all those numbers associated with NARA records mean?
My last few posts have explored the compiled military service records (CMSRs) at the National Archives, highlighting in particular the extra information found in the records, especially the personal papers relating to individual soldiers such as enlistment and discharge forms, casualty sheets, or final statements of service. One last point to make is that personal … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: The last word on CMSR personal papers.
