1945 Morning Reports Are Online…On Fold3

1945 morning reports are online now. There are on Fold3, and not in the NARA Catalog. Hold on, don’t panic! In this blog post, I’ll tell you how to search for the Morning Reports, AND remind you of ways to access Fold3 if you do not have a personal subscription. Then there is a little context and when they should appear in the NARA catalogue. Let’s start with where to find Fold3.

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Where to Find Fold3

If you are in Maryland, you are set! (NOTE: The subscriptions at any library are not guaranteed to stay the same, so check the libraries yourself.)

Check to see if your Maryland county library has access to the Library Edition of Fold3. In Maryland, Anne Arundel County Public Library, Frederick County Public Libraries, Harford County Public Library, and Enoch Pratt Free Library offer it. You should have an Enoch Pratt Free Library card anyhow to use other subscriptions! (Check out www.prattlibrary.org/library-cards and see eCard to apply.) Google how to get a library card from one of these counties.  For example, I can use my Anne Arundel County Public Library card to access Fold3 from home, but you need to check if your library allows access from home.

If your county in Maryland does not offer access to Fold3, you can get a library card from any other county in Maryland and access it using that card number. Always be sure to get an actual library card number from the other country.

If you live outside of Maryland, check your county library’s genealogy resources for Fold3. If your county does not have it, check the policies for getting a library card from a library in your state that does have it. Speak to your local Librarian – they are incredibly helpful, and you might want to find out how to voice your opinion about what genealogy databases they should consider!

You can access Fold3 from NARA locations.

You can usually access Fold3 from FamilySearch Centers. (Check with the FamilySearch Center before visiting.)

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How to Search Fold3 for 1945 Morning Reports

An easy way to get started is from the Fold3 homepage. What you’ll notice is that these records are 100% complete. They were published on Fold3 on August 19, 2026, and last updated September 30, 2026. (I’ll remind you what that last date might mean later on.)

NOTE: On Fold3, you can search in many different ways. This is just one of them.

Start at the Fold3 homepage. Type morning reports in the search box, and select Keywords from the drop-down menu.

The search results will have two Publications of Morning Reports. You’ll want to look at the publication: US, Morning Reports, 1945.

The search result to select is the Publication: US, Morning Reports, 1945.

Even though the description gives 1940-1946, the Publication name contains only 1945.

In the search box on the publication page, I entered my search terms: James C McMahon and selected Name from the dropdown menu when it appeared.

I had several results that were for this soldier right away.

Remember to use the Actions button for downloading them.

Clicking on the film strip icon lets you view the other Morning Reports. You have to download them one at a time.

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NARA Digitization Agreements

(NOTE: I am not a lawyer, I don’t play one on TV, and this is not intended to be legal advice or opinion. The following contains links where you can learn the details of NARA’s Digitization Partnerships.)

Having digitization partners can speed up the effort to scan and get records online. It can stretch the financial and personnel resources of NARA. In this case, although Fold3 is a subscription database, it is one that can potentially be accessed through a library.

For a list of Microfilm Publications and Original Records Digitized by NARA’s Digitization Partners, https://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.

NARA Principles for Partnerships to Digitize Archival Materials are at https://www.archives.gov/digitization/principles.html.

To learn more about the NARA Digitization Partnerships and to read the agreements, visit https://www.archives.gov/digitization/partnerships. In the The Ancestry.com Letter of Intent (2024) Item (2)(e)(iv) shows the WWII US Army Morning Reports.

This Publication was last updated on September 30, 2026, and it is 100% Complete. By the NARA digitization agreements with its digitization partners, the digitization partner is has exclusive use of the images for an embargo period, “the period of five years, which begins on the first of January after the end of the scanning phase for the Digital Images covered by a Project Plan or segmented portion of a series of Digital Materials in a Project Plan, within which all Digital Materials for that series or segmented portion created by Ancestry will be published exclusively by Ancestry.” (Ancestry.com Partnership Agreement)

“If resources permit, we will try to make the digital materials available in our online catalog within the same year they are no longer in the embargo period.” (“NARA Principles for Partnerships to Digitize Archival Materials”) So if the effort is complete, the embargo period should begin in January 2027, and we might possibly see the images loaded into the NARA Catalog sometime in 2031. BUT we did not see a year or years of Morning Reports on the Letter of Intent, so we don’t know if 1946 Morning Reports are part of that item. If they are, then start the clock when those go online.

For tonight I will travel back to 1945. Let me know how you do.

Born in Brooklyn: An Alien in WWII

Researching women can be challenging. Research married women can be more challenging. Researching women who marry an alien can become more complex. Researching this topic was intriguing and challenging. Then, finding a way to explain its complexities clearly and understandably made this blog post take considerably longer to write than I had anticipated. I learned a lot, and hope you will too! Additional resources to learn more are listed at the bottom of the post.

I always try out databases, and there was only one person I could think of in my family tree who might not have been a citizen in the 1940’s. She married a subject of Great Britain. After her Scottish husband’s death, she had remarried a U.S. citizen, so I did not think I would find her in the database of people who registered under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. (Other countries had similar laws: stay tuned for another blog post about that.)

Surprisingly, her name appeared.

On 6 Aug 1913 my great aunt married James Howie Young, a man who lived in Scotland in her parent’s home. They sailed off to travel through Europe, then live permanently in Glasgow, Scotland. James died in 1929. Later, she married a citizen, John J. Greene in 1932.

The Expatriation Act was passed on March 2, 1907, and at that time “any American woman who marries a foreigner shall take the nationality of her husband.” On 22 September 1922, the Cable Act repealed the 1907 Expatriation Act and women no longer lost their citizenship based on their husband’s nationality when they married. But for women married before then, the situation was more complicated. In 1936, divorced or widowed women could repatriate via an application, and upon its approval taking an oath of allegiance. As of 2 July 1940, an Act allowed women to repatriate no matter what their marital status was. The repatriation oaths could be filed in any county, state or federal. They might be separate in a court’s naturalization records (as in Westchester County, NY). What we do know from the AR-2 is that even though a statutory path to repatriation existed by 1936, Kathryn apparently had not completed it by the date of her 1940 alien registration (20 December 1940).

My first reminder that she had been affected by the Expatriation Act was when her citizenship was listed on a ship manifest for a cruise from Bermuda in 1931. She was shown as a citizen of Britain. (Race or people: German; Returning Resident; Place of birth: Brooklyn.) The record was definitely for her, as she lived at the same address on Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn as the person she was going to join, her mother. (This was also a known family address.) The German race or people was interesting; her late father was a German immigrant to the U.S. who naturalized.

Further searching uncovered that she had returned to the U.S. in 1929 on SS Laconia. Her nationality (country): Britain; Race or people: American. She was a widow, with her nearest relative in the country she departed being her mother-in-law, and she was going to join her mother in Brooklyn. She had been in the United States from 1928 to 1929.

After watching Researching Immigrant Ancestors: Alien Registration (AR-2) Forms Elizabeth Burnes and John LeGloahec in the 2025 NARA Genealogy Series https://www.archives.gov/calendar/genealogy-series/2025#Session%205, I searched for an AR-2 for Kathryn. (Use the link to view the video of the presentation, and to download the presentation slides.)

The parts of the Alien Registration Form are shown below. NARA has the AR-2 itself, but additional parts of the form may be found in A-Files or may no longer exist.

I searched from Access to Archival Databases (AAD) at https://aad.archives.gov/aad/and selected the Flexoline Index Database, which is the finding aid to the AR-2 forms.

Alternatively, you can go directly to the search page at https://aad.archives.gov/aad/series-description.jsp?s=5259&cat=all&bc=sl

If you are having issues finding a person, remember to try advanced searches with broader information like surname and location, and alternate spellings. There were no results for either of her two married names, but there was a result for her maiden name. The use of wildcards is also an option (e.g. Kath* Small).

There was only one result.

I viewed the record.

I clicked on the icon in the View Record column to see the result. (Only the top of the full result is shown below.)

From the information in this search result compared to what I knew of Kathryn’s life, I was sure that this was a record for her. Alien Registration: A4790720

Using the instructions in the presentation, I used the A-number to search the NARA Catalog to see if NARA had an Alien File (A-File) for her. That search was unsuccessful.

I began the process to order her AR-2 file from NARA by sending the email that is described in the instructions at https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/alien-registration-ar-2. This page also contains a link to sample forms. Since she was born over 100 years ago, the process was simpler than for deceased individuals who were born more recently than 100 years ago.

There was an automated email response reminding me to be sure that I had submitted the required information. I had sent the email on a weekend day, and on the next business day, a NARA Archivist responded that their search in the Flexoline Index had returned a record for Kathryn, and provided both of her married names. (Her married names were not included in the search result from the AAD.) The email also confirmed the results of my search, that NARA did not hold an A-file for her. If you find that NARA has the A-File for your ancestor, follow the instructions in the NARA video for information about how to order it.

The email contained information about how to complete the payment for the order. There is no option to pay online, so follow the instructions. Not wanting to email my credit card information, I elected to wait a couple of days to be sure the order number existed in their system, then called to my provide payment. Within a couple of weeks, a link to download the form was emailed to me. The link is advertised to only stay active for 30 days, so be sure to download it.

Kathryn’s Alien Registration Form gave her physical description, showed her profession as a housewife, and included that she had not been arrested. The date of the affidavit was 20 December 1940. People who were unsure that they were an aalien were encouraged to register, and in the Federal Register, August 14, 1940, §29.4(n), the official was instructed to write “Applicant doubts need for registration” in the margin of the form. According to the Statement by the Department of Justice paragraph in Congressional Record of the Senate, 1941, thousands of people doubted their status and registered for their own protection. Kathryn has no such notation.

Upon not finding an A-File at NARA, the suggestion is that I could possibly pursue if USCIS might still hold an A-File for her, and had not yet transferred it to NARA. What I learned from the Westchester County, NY, courthouse was that these women could have filed an Application to take Oath of Allegiance as a Naturalization Repatriation. (The database had no entry for her in that County of her residence.) USCIS may not hold an A-File for her, and searching for one incurs a cost, so I may not do this check. It is also possible that she never did repatriate.

Upon prompting, ChatGPT put together an infographic about the AR-2 to A-file process using information at: https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/alien-registration-ar-2. Google Gemini verified the information in this image using information found at the NARA AR-2 webpage.

The laws concerning a women’s citizenship in these days was not straightforward, so I did a little more digging. Stay tuned for another blog post with more information about other countries’ similar laws and how Kathryn may have been stateless after her second marriage.

Learning More

Alien Registration (AR-2) Forms https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/alien-registration-ar-2

To learn more about Flexoline files, go to https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/flexoline

Researching Immigrant Ancestors: Alien Registration (AR-2) Forms Elizabeth Burnes and John LeGloahec in the 2025 NARA Genealogy Series https://www.archives.gov/calendar/genealogy-series/2025#Session%205

When Saying “I Do” Meant Giving Up Your U.S. Citizenship by Meg Hacker https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/spring/citizenship.pdf

Westchester County County Clerk: Index for N – O https://archives.westchestercountyny.gov/county-clerk/n-o#series11

Federal Register, August 14, 1940, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1940-08-14/pdf/FR-1940-08-14.pdf (see §29.4(n) on p 2840)

The National Registration of Aliens: Instructions for Registration and Specimen Form https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/rnpj9e5

U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 77th Cong., 1st sess., April 1, 1941, vol. 87. https://www.congress.gov/77/crecb/1941/04/01/GPO-CRECB-1941-pt3-9-1.pdf (see Statement by the Department of Justice paragraph 3 p 2773 )

Give it a try, and let me know who you find!

Second Edition Now Available: Finding and Using U.S. Army WWI and WWII Morning Reports

We’re pleased to announce the Second Edition of:

Finding and Using U.S. Army WWI and WWII Morning Reports

is now available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKV8X3B2

This Second Edition has arrived with updated guidance for finding, understanding, and using one of the most valuable sources available for researching U.S. Army service during World War I and World War II: Morning Reports.

The Second Edition includes major updates to two important chapters:

• How to find World War I Morning Reports using Fold3
• How to find World War II Morning Reports using the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Catalog

Morning Reports can allow you to travel back in time with a soldier or military organization, following locations, personnel changes, and events day by day.

For researchers dealing with Army personnel files lost in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire, Morning Reports can be especially valuable. They may help you overcome gaps left by burned personnel files, and, in some cases, help you reconstruct a soldier’s military experience in greater detail than a personnel file alone.

You can look for references to a specific soldier, but the real power of Morning Reports comes from following that soldier’s unit even on days when the soldier is not specifically named.

What You Will Learn

The book explains the formats used for WWI and WWII Morning Reports, the information they contain, and how those records changed over time.

Examples throughout the book introduce readers to the specialized language, abbreviations, and terminology used in WWII Morning Reports so that the records become easier to interpret.

Because locating Morning Reports is not always straightforward, the book also includes techniques for finding elusive reports, recognizing gaps in a record set, and developing strategies for working around missing records.

Going Beyond Individual Morning Reports

Morning Reports become even more useful when analyzed as a series rather than as isolated documents.

Case studies in the book demonstrate how reports from different parts of a military organization can be combined to reconstruct events.

These records place your soldier within the larger story of the military organization and the history unfolding around it.

For Genealogists and Historians

Genealogists can use Morning Reports to reconstruct military service when traditional personnel records are incomplete or unavailable.

Historians can use the same techniques to follow the activities and movements of military organizations through a world war.

The book also points researchers toward additional military records and sources that can help expand the story beyond what is contained in the Morning Reports themselves.

Bonus material covers reporting done by other military branches.

Finding and Using U.S. Army WWI and WWII Morning Reports Second Edition can be found in paperback using eco-friendly groundwood paper on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKV8X3B2

Search Changes for WWII Morning Reports

Several previous posts have been updated to reflect changes in the search experience for NARA’s Catalog. As a result, how to search for WWII Morning Reports online at NARA has changed. This post ties together new recommendations to help you find the reports you seek.

Note: At the time of writing this post, no Morning Reports for January 1945 or beyond are posted online on the NARA Catalog.

After updates to NARA’s Catalog software, I recommend searching within the Morning Report series. Click on the Search within this Series button in the Series Description page for Morning Reports, 1940-1946 at: https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/85713825

This will take you to the page where your search is limited to the Morning Reports series.

Enter search terms or search phrases within double quotes in the Search within this Series box. Be sure that the double quote marks are straight, not curly. One thing that is different from past recommendations is that Boolean terms such as AND no longer work. The search terms or exact search phrases that are within quotes are just listed one after the other, which is a little easier.

Remember that you need to stay in that same tab of the browser to view links to where the search terms have been found within the results.

Remember to be flexible in your searches, and to try different terms.

Be looking for a revised edition of my Morning Report book very soon!

Good luck, and let me know how you do.

Changes When Searching The NARA Catalog

The way that you search the NARA Catalog has changed.

NARA has made changes to the backend of how Catalog searches are implemented. The change means that a search using Boolean operators between more than two phrases within double quotes will result in an error screen.

More simply explained, if you have been using quotation marks and Boolean operators (e.g. AND) in your searches, don’t! Strip out all operators and quotes because multiple search keywords are now automatically interpreted as having an AND between them. That means the search results will have all the keywords in them.

In the past, where I might have used in the search bar:

“Morning Reports” AND “500th AAA” AND “Greenland”

I would NOW enter this is the search bar:

Morning Reports 500th AAA Greenland

For all the search terms you find, remove the double quotes and the Boolean operator AND and you should be error free.

Top 5 WWI /WWII Memorial Day Research Resources

As we pause to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving our country, consider learning more about those in our family.

After some thought, these are the resources I recommend to get you started or move you farther along on your research into WWI and WWII fallen service members. There are links to our blog posts with how-to’s for researching military members who fell in WWI and WWII. There is also a link to our post about an archived reference about America’s wars. With the link to the partially digitized WWII NARA record series for WWII deaths, think about how you might use the files even if the specific file you seek has not been digitized yet. Take what you learn from these resources as directions to dig deeper into more detailed sources.

Researching Soldiers who died during World War I  

https://aweekofgenealogy.com/researching-soldiers-who-died-during-world-war-i/

This post gives brief background about what happened to soldiers who fell during the Great War and some steps for researching them.  

The U.S. Military Records That Never Burned

https://aweekofgenealogy.com/the-u-s-military-records-that-never-burned/

Yes, many of the US Army personnel records were lost in the 1973 fire, BUT the original records that were used to construct them were not. WWI Death Files / WWII Individual Death Personnel Files (IDPF) are discussed in this post.

Tales from Morning Reports: From Duty to Death

https://aweekofgenealogy.com/tales-from-morning-reports-from-duty-to-death/

In addition to basing a story on WWII Morning Reports, this post describes what records were consulted that added to the story. The resources that were used are listed.

Reference from the Department of Veterans Affairs

https://aweekofgenealogy.com/reference-from-the-department-of-veterans-affairs/

This post describes a VA source for summary statistics about America’s Wars. It contains a link to an archived copy of this interesting resource.

Individual Deceased Personnel Files

https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/297287480?sort=title%3Aasc

The NARA Catalog contains the IDPF files that have begun to be digitized. These files contain the records that were generated and correspondence about the dead WWII service member. In the case that your ancestor’s file has not been digitized, you might still choose to search these files.

You can search from the main catalog for “Individual Deceased Personnel Files” AND a name (or variations) in quotation marks for a mention of them in someone else’s file. If they died on a ship, you might find locate a file for those who died on the same ship and read the common information that would be in all their files, which should include the names of all the personnel involved

For example, start at:

https://catalog.archives.gov

and insert an individual’s name or name of a ship, using search terms such as:

“Individual Deceased Personnel Files” AND “USS Helena”

For context search for those who died in the same location. For example a search from the NARA Catalog:

“Individual Deceased Personnel Files” AND “Greenland”

returned digitized files for individuals who died on USAT Dorchester. These files included details about the ship and its sinking. First person sworn statements from survivors are also included in this file.

BONUS!

Do not forget to search the Veterans Legacy Memorial to find those interred in veterans cemeteries in the US and abroad.

https://www.vlm.cem.va.gov

Of course, do not forget to search Findagrave for those fallen service members who returned to the United States.

https://www.findagrave.com