I do not know if service personnel were REQUIRED to file their discharge papers with local government agencies, but I have found all of my family's discharge papers on file at the local county courthouse...it gives quite a bit of information ......including any medals they received...... >>>>Richard Wrote>>>>>> Brenda... There is no reason to suppose automatically that someone who registered for the draft in W.W.I actually served. Almost all men who were of an age required to register did, but only a certain (relatively small) percentage were drafted. Our military involvement in W.W.I was very small compared with W.W.II. For example, my maternal grandfather registered for the draft in Immokalee, Florida, but took his family home to Whigham, Georgia, then himself went to somewhere near, I think it was Dothan, Alabama, where he took a job in a munitions plant, to assure that he did not get drafted. I knew all of that except the part about Immokalee from oral history. I don't know what he was doing in Immokalee. So far as I knew he had always lived in Fort Myers. So my first question would be: Do you know through oral history that the man in question actually served? If he did, he may have filed his discharge record at the courthouse in the county he returned to after military service. There is no requirement that that be done, but it was recommended practice and many did. If you're like me though, you might not know for sure where that might be. If he did serve there is a pretty fair chance that his grave was marked with a VA gravestone. At least some of those show the unit that the veteran served in, and my impression is that showing such information was more common on W.W.I veterans' stones. In my father's brother's case (he died on active duty between the wars) I found state service officer records showing his military ID number in my grandmother's Bible. If I had not found that, there would have been nothing. Most of the records of military service from before W.W.I to after W.W.II were burned in an enormous fire in 1973 (see: http://www.archives.gov/facilities/mo/st_louis/military_personnel_records/fi re_1973.html ) that lasted for days, at the federal records center in St. Louis. I asked the records center for copies of what they had based on that service number and instead was requested by them to provide what I had so that they could "reconstruct" my uncle's personnel record from it. So, before I made the request they had nothing... and afterwards they had what I provided to them, from my grandmother's Bible. A copy of the discharge papers of many veterans... such as my father who was a W.W.II Army vet... had been forwarded to the VA and were reconstructed from VA files. But those reconstructed records will have only the discharge record... not the full record. It will show the last unit assigned to but will not note any before that. You really need the man's service number. Failing that, knowing his unit might help. Not knowing either... I don't know if there is any chance at all... and there is a huge probability that his record was destroyed anyway. RW Brenda Antal wrote: >If there are any military experts out there, can you please tell me if a man >was living in Sumter Co, FL, registered with the Civilian Draft, and has a >very common name, ie: James Jones, is there anyway to find out what unit he >was assigned to so I can get his records? >

There was no official requirement to file the discharge papers with the county clerk but it was strongly suggested. The World War I discharge was called just that and was so called up until about 1955 and it was then called a DD-214 which contained quite a bit more information such as place entered, place discharged, birthdate, Social Security number, and usually the next of kin. The legislature in FL tried to pass a law this past year to close these books since some of them contained such personal information as Soc. Sec. number but the efforts failed due mostly to heavy lobbying by the First Amendment Foundation and genealogical researchers, etc. Those who have these types of records in other states should watch their legislators carefully and not let them close these books. Alvie L. Davidson CGRS Lakeland, Florida http://www.floridadetective.net "Keep smiling and keep 'em guessing what you are up to!" --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes

As President of the Florida State Genealogical Society, I am pleased to announce that we now have posted to our web page the complete updated index of Florida Pioneers that have been documented up to 2001. http://www.rootsweb.com/~flsgs/ Our web master Drew Smith and our Pioneer Program coordinator, Mary Parker has provided us with an excellent readable and printable format for you to use. Keep in mind, that this is just the list of names that have been documented and proven to the year 2001. All documentation for these records can be found at the Florida State Archives. For information about receiving this prestigious Florida Pioneer Certificate, you can print or download from our web site the application workbook. The deadline has passed for this year to send in your application. However, now is the time to start working on next year. FSGS will be hosting the Federation of Genealogical Societies Annual Conference in Orlando http://www.fgs.org/2003conf/FGS-2003.htm We will have an earlier cut-off date for the applications and the awards will be presented much two months sooner at the FGS/FSGS conference on 3 Sept (Wednesday) 2003. In addition, don't forget our annual conference in St. Petersburg this year on Nov 15-16. Complete information can be found at our web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~flsgs/ There is something for everyone at the annual state conference! Pam Cooper FSGS President -- Are you a member of the Florida State Genealogical Society? If not, visit our web page to find out how to become a part of a great organization. http://www.rootsweb.com/~flsgs/ ****************************************************** Pamela J. Cooper P. O. Box 7066 Vero Beach, FL 32961-7066 Email: [email protected]