Maybe I'm the last genealogy hunter to find this out...but I'm going to share it anyway, because I just found out about this and I'm pretty excited. You can request your dead ancestors COMPLETE military file. From what I understand this file could be small...or could contain correspondence written by the ancestor, interviews with his neighbors..background checks...possibly even a picture! Most probably it will contain information about his family...parents, siblings. Here is a link to the Form 180: http://www.nara.gov/regional/mprsf180.html I have faxed my request in for my husband's difficult Slovenian grandfather. I believe they told me the turn around time is about 4 months but since I have tried to find information on this branch for over a year with no luck...that sounded pretty darn good to me! Plus, if I recall correctly, the cost of all this was about $10. Sharon