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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 21 – Military



Yes, I do know that week 21 was last week, so I am late, which is not that uncommon for me. I had thought that I would probably skip this theme because most of my family did not serve in the military and I had already written about many who did. However, yesterday I saw that Ancestry had added a new database to their collection, U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947, so I decided to look up some family names in that collection and write about them today.

I started with Albertson in Linn County, Oregon. There was my father, Lester Albertson and his first cousin Earle Albertson, both listed as Halsey, Linn County, Oregon as their residence place. My father's registration was on 16 Oct 1940. I checked the historical background for this database as given by Ancestry:
The U.S. officially entered World War II on 8 December 1941 following an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. About a year before, in October 1940, President Roosevelt had signed into law the first peacetime selective service draft in U.S. history because of rising world conflicts. Multiple registrations held between November 1940 and October 1946 signed up more than 50 million American men aged 18–45 for the draft.”
Although this states the registrations began in November, apparently Linn County started soon after the law was passed.

Next I looked at my Falk cousins who lived in Linn County. There were 10 of them listed, except Gerald was my uncle, not cousin. The first 5 were registered on the same day as my father, 16 Oct 1940. The next 2 were registered on 1 Jul 1941, still before war had been declared. They both were born in 1920, so were age 21 before that date. The next 3 were on or a few days after their 18th birthday. They were registered near the end or after the end of World War II. Here is a listing as found on Ancestry.


Name
Birthdate
Registration Date
Charles Donald Falk
08 Nov 1913
16 Oct 1940
Leslie Edgar Falk
03 Jun 1915
16 Oct 1940
Russell Charles Falk
05 Apr 1915
16 Oct 1940
Omar Ellsworth Falk
27 Aug 1916
16 Oct 1940
Rawley Lincoln Falk
12 Feb 1918
16 Oct 1940
Everett Henry Falk
21 Jun 1920
01 Jul 1941
Lyman Lyle Falk
15 Feb 1920
01 Jul 1941
Louis Raymond Falk
12 Apr 1926
12 Apr 1944
Gerald Keith Falk
01 Aug 1927
08 Aug 1945
Delmer Orvilee Falk
13 Mar 1929
13 Mar 1947

I checked one more place. Were any of my relatives in Sherman County, Kansas registered?  The answer is yes. An Albertson cousin, Wilfred Glen Albertson, and a Smalley cousin, Lauren Bobby Smalley, were both registered on that first date, 16 Oct 1940.  For these 2, Ancestry provided a link to Fold 3, where I could see a copy of the actual registration. So here are those 2 registrations. 





So, what did I learn from this? Often it pays to check the research databases to see if any of the new records will include your family members.



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