Gloria Frazier wrote: > > Hey, wait a minute. [text outlining process for ordering form used to request draft registration snipped] > Did you just order the form by email or were you able to order the > card itself by email? And, if you ordered the card copy by email, > did you use that email address in the above instruction???????? We > need more info on your ease in getting the copy. Thanks. On 10/28/99 I e-mailed NARA Southeast, <archives@atlanta.nara.gov>. I said I was writing "to request either the appropriate form or the search itself, whichever I may have at this time". And I gave the info: name (including a range of possible surnames), D.O.B., and town of residence during the draft period. On 11/16/99 I got an e-mail response from a very helpful Ms. Suzanne Dewberry, Archivist (bless her heart), writing from that same e-mail address. She told me she'd located the draft card and to please remit a check or money order in the amount of $10 made out to the National Archives Trust Fund and send it to NARA--Southeast Region, 1557 St. Joseph Avenue, East Point GA 30344. Upon receipt, she would send the copy by return mail. I did, and she did. I have been most favorably impressed with the staff at NARA Southeast, specifically Ms. Dewberry and also a gentleman named Roger who has been working the desk and helping people during my three visits there. They seem not to fit the stereotypical bureaucrat mold. In fact, it's my experience that they treat researchers as valued customers. Very refreshing, and it prompted me to write and file a favorable comment and leave a donation during my last visit. > Oh, Bill, I know when Soc Security came along and many didn't have > a birth cert then WWII and still no birth cert, and they HAD to > have one. If they wanted to change the spelling of/or just their > name, that was the time and many did. The Bible record might say > Mom gave a child the name Edward and on his birth cert he is Milton > George. They were also advised if they wanted to shorten or > Americanize their names that making a delayed birth cert was the > time to do it. Just a thot on Gusky. This might have been a form of > the case with him going into WWI. My grandfather died in 1934, prior to SS registration, so no help there. I've come to believe the original Lithuanian name was Gajauskas, but he used a Polish variation, Gayousky, in the early days for his marriage license and the baptism of his children. Then he used Guskey on his draft registration in 1918, and it somehow got cranked around to Gusky. I speculate he stayed away from the original name to throw the Russians off the trail, because he left parents and a sister in Lithuania in 1900, and feared retribution for fleeing conscription. All speculation at this point, but I have hope of learning more from four or five Lithuanian language circa 1928 - 1934 letters from his sister which I hope to receive next week. Thanks for your comments, Gloria. I believe you're right that he'd emigrated without a birth cert (probably to avoid leaving a trail), and I guess that made it easier to change his name and even his age to fit the circumstances. Cheers. -- Bill Gusky DeLand, Florida "Too soon oldt, und too late schmart!"