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 [...]

Friday marks the annual observance of Veterans Day, a day on which we honor the millions of brave men and women who have served in the Armed Forces.  This Tag It Tuesday, in tribute to our military veterans, we’re asking you to tag records in the Online Public Access (OPA) that relate to veterans and the military.   [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

In early December, the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, awarded Weidman Outstanding Volunteer Service Awards to three National Archives volunteers.  Robert Gaugler was honored for his leadership of volunteer projects to make America’s military records more accessible. What’s your name and where do you volunteer at NARA? My name is Bob Gaugler, and [...]

Continuing the theme of my last post, which introduced alternate ways to research 20th century military service (to compensate for the personnel files lost in the 1973 file at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis), this time we’ll look at two essential series of unit records relating to World War II. By far [...]

A recent post in the “NARA Coast to Coast” blog here on NARAtions (see Pay Day for Some World War I Military Personnel Records from September 27, 2010) highlighted problems in researching 20th century military service that resulted from the July 12, 1973 fire at the Military Personnel Record Center in St. Louis, Missouri.  In addition to [...]

In honor of Veterans Day, today’s blog post comes from Nathan Jordan, an Archives Technician at the National Archives at Atlanta.  Nathan recently presented his family’s history of military service using resources from the National Archives. Greetings from Atlanta!  Thanks for allowing me to blog in honor of Veterans Day. When I began working as [...]

Since we’ve been highlighting special fighting units that served in various wars, I thought I would mention a group I’m sure many people have probably heard about (even if you’re not exactly sure who they are): the Galvanized Yankees.  These men were former Confederate prisoners of war who opted to enlist in the Union Army to [...]