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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
For researching a WWI or a WWII soldier, have you considered using the Rosters at NARA? They are located Series: Muster Rolls and Rosters, November 1, 1912–December 31, 1943 within Record Group 64. This blog post will show where to search for rosters, including how to use an online finding aid for finding WWII rosters that will make your task much easier.
The rosters are arranged in three subseries within Muster Rolls and Rosters, November 1, 1912–December 31, 1943:
Muster Rolls, November 1, 1912 – June 30, 1918 and Enlisted and Officer Rosters, July 1, 1918 – December 31, 1939,
Officer Rosters, 1920 – 1939,
Army and Army Air Force (Air Corp) Rosters, 1940 – 1943
On this page, you will find information about how to locate WWII rosters organized by:
Army enlisted service members
Army officers
Army Air Force (Air Corp) enlisted service members
Army Air Force (Air Corp) officers
Within those categories, the rosters are organized by type of reporting unit.
To use the finding aid, click on the plus sign to expand the link to locate the type of unit. There will be box numbers shown, but some entries will contain links to digitized rosters, or to a pdf that contains the National Archives Identifier (NAID) in NARA’s Catalog to use when locating the online rosters.
In this example, I am searching for the rosters for a soldier in Battery A of the 500th AAA Gun Battalion, so clicked on the plus sign next to “Chemical and Antiaircraft Artillery” to expand the section.
I licked on the link for “Antiaircraft Battalion – Boxes 246-348.”
The PDF file shows that the rosters are stored by increasing NAID numbers, by the number of the organization.The first page contains the column headers. (They are not repeated on subsequent pages.)
Scrolling down to the beginning of page 4 of the PDF, I find Btry C, 500th AAA Gn Bn, 1943. That means Roll Number 307 (2 of 3), which begins with Battery C of that Battalion has NAID Identifier 371744319.
Since the soldier is in Battery A, I will want to check the previous part of the roll, listed at the bottom of page 3 of the PDF, NAID 371744318, Roll Number 307 (1 of 3). I would expect that rosters for Battery A would be closer to the end of the Roll. (Remember to use the Chrome Browser to see the images in order, as Firefox has a documented bug of showing images in reverse order.)
There is a blank page between the months, so I began by checking the image after the blank pages in the image range of 800-900.
I recommend building a list or a table with the information for the organization, to keep track of links. (Note: Organization and Link appear in the same column for readability. In my Excel worksheet, they appear in separate columns.)
I would want to continue to go backwards chronologically to collect the rosters for the time the soldier I am researching was in the Battery.
Another option, as described in our blog post about locating WWII Morning Reports in PDF Files can also make the task easier. Search the NARA catalog for: 371745320, which is the NAID for the final part of the Roll Number 307, part 3 of 3.
From there, the PDF files containing groups of 125 images from the Roll can be downloaded. Images for Battery A can be found in the files Roll-0307_07.pdf and Roll-0307_08.pdf
As a reminder, I search from the main catalog page at https://catalog.archives.gov/ so that I can benefit from the links to the search terms in the results. To see if more Morning Report are available I search for terms such as: “Morning Reports” AND “October 1944”
This time there were results! I kept searching, and Morning Reports up to December 1944 are available. (Search terms: “Morning Reports” AND “December 1944”) I did check for any from 1945, there were no results (yet!).
Of course, I did search for my father, by name and by serial number. This time I did find a mention of him. My brother was the first to know of this find, grateful that this was not a middle-of-the-night call!
For tonight, I will share that SGT James C. McMahon appeared in a Morning Report for 13 October 1944, still in Narsarssuak, Greenland. July 1944 had left me with a cliffhanger, and this record provided data about two military organizations with which he served after the 500th AAA Gun Battalion left Greenland.
I will post about my continuing research as I use Morning Reports to reconstruct my father’s WWII service. From here, I will be busy moving forward and backward in time to track what was happening in Greenland.
Thank you to NARA! Good luck searching, and let me know how you do!
Remember that it is best to use a browser other than Firefox to see the image pages in order. If you choose to download the PDF file, know that it is over 1GB in size. You might want to read it online and download only the pages of interest.
My first stop for Civil War veterans is the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors (CWSS) database to learn what I could about his service and his organization. One surprise at CWSS was a note that: “This database is no longer maintained and updated.”
I searched for: “1st Regiment, New York Infantry” AND Kennedy, Thomas. There were three results. (I could have searched for Thomas Kennedy, then selected filters for Union and New York, and searched on results for 1st Regiment, New York Infantry.)
Thomas Kennedy was a Private in Companies A, F and G.
I clicked on the Battle Unit Name to learn more about the history of the 1st Regiment, New York Infantry, in the Civil War.
The second search result was an entry for Thomas McKinley contained a General Note that the original was filed under Thomas/Kennedy, and a Name Note – true name of soldier.
Then third result was for Kennedy, John. Although he might be related, I have no evidence. So I will just keep track of this.
Kennedy, Thomas 1st Regiment NY Inf Co G Invalid Pension Filed 11 Feb 1897 (Dead)
Over to Fold3 to search for military records there, I located three pension index cards for Thomas Kennedy. There was one each for the Companies in which he had served in the 1st Regiment, New York Infantry. Each card had the filing date of 11 Feb 1897 for an Invalid Pension, and the alias of Thomas McKingley. All three cards have been stamped “DEAD.”
Thomas McKingley’s Pension Index showed the alias Thomas Kennedy.
The next stop was the The New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center. They have a variety of online resources. I selected Unit History from the navigation menu, then the US Civil War, 1861-1865.
The 1st New York Infantry Regiment page had descriptions of the Regiment from two sources and gave me other information about its two years of service and the location where each of the companies mustered in and when.
Mustered in: April 22, 1861 Mustered out: May 25, 1863
The history of this regiment includes its service at Newport News, and discusses a noteworthy incident when Merrimac attacked the fortifications on March 8, 1862. Earlier in the war, USS Merrimac had been burned, captured and rebuilt as an ironclad warship, CSS Virginia. The Battle of Hampton Roads, where Virginia fought the Monitor in the Duel of the Ironclads, occurred on March 9, 1862. This story had captivated my son when he read Patrick O’Brien’s book, Duel of the Ironclads, in 1st grade. Finding out an ancestor was there was a big deal. We had visited the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News to learn more about CSS Virginia and USS Monitor as described in this blog postFamily History Outing: The Mariner’s Museum, Newport News, VA (where there was also some Pioneer Infantry history).
The page also contained links to other online resources.
The New York State Military Museum had a link to the Adjutant-General Report of the State of New York for the Year 1898. This report contained the register of the First Veteran Infantry, which included these two entries. They presented summary information without all the details found in the muster rolls.
At Ancestry.com, I looked at results in the New York, U.S., Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900 database. The result for Thomas Kennedy contained 1st Inf for the Regiment, and with an explanation field: “see McKinley, Thomas.”
He was mustered into Company G, then was transferred to Company F.
He mustered in to Company F, then was transferred to Company A. There was a reference in the Remarks about his name being Thomas Kennedy, and a reference to a letter.
On the back of this page, a letter from the Record and Pension Office of the War Department had been attached. It has been determined that Thomas Kennedy was the true name of the soldier who had served as Thomas McKinley.
He was mustered into Company A after being absent with out leave from December 1862 until May 1863, but he was satisfactorily accounted for. In other Civil War records I had seen soldiers who were sick or wounded later rejoin their organization. Tracking these men after battles or while troops were moving was challenging.
With this information, I can create a timeline to compare events in the history of the 1st Regiment Companies with the time that Thomas Kennedy was with each company.
I went back to Fold3 to search for the Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) Index.
The card for Thomas McKinley was a reference card pointing to the original filed under Kennedy, Thomas, the true name of soldier.
I know that I need to view the CMSR and the Pension file for the Rev. Fr. Kennedy to learn more about him and, hopefully, his family connections. So I ordered them through a NARA retrieval service.
