Ancestry Offers Free Military Records

For a Limited Time Only Ancestry.com has recently added a database of U.S. military enlistment and draft records purportedly beginning with the Jamestown settlement (1607) and running through the Vietnam era (1970). Records can be searched with as little as a last name. However, the results list will be pretty long for such a search. (It's also important to note that the search does not stem a partial last name or allow for "wildcard" searches if you are unsure of the exact spelling of a name.)

Searches can be further narrowed down by adding:

• First Name
• Birth Year
• Death Year
• War/Conflict
• Keywords (e.g. the unit in which they served)

Information contained in the records includes:

• Name
• Birth Year
• Enlistment Date
• Education
• Height
• Weight
• Marital Status

Access to the records is free through June 6, 2007 (the D-Day anniversary). After that it will be free to search the database, but access to the records will be limited to users with paid subscriptions to Ancestry.com.