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Is there a online source to help determine which branch of service someone was drafted into for World War I? I found my grandfather's WWI draft card on Ancestry.com but wasn't able to find any anything else about his military service. draft card http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1407454/Lemuel_Austin_Smith_Draft_Card.jpg

I'm filling out a NARA Form 180 request but wanted to see if I could at least fill in the "Branch of Service" information on it before submitting.

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  • are you allowed to copy ancestry images onto the anybody can see internet (which se is)? If yes, you probably should say that (ie put comment like here is the image courtesy of ancestry.com under liscence whatever). If you aren't, you probably should remove and just gist some of the facts in text. The data you read off it is not copyrighted because this is a federal document. But I don't know the status of the image and it would be useful to make that clear.
    – Duncan
    Dec 13 '12 at 12:58
  • @Duncan. Do you see a problem? Have opened a chat chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/7258673#7258673
    – GeneJ
    Dec 13 '12 at 15:53
  • I just asked because I didn't know. I think it general it would be good to say when you post an image. In this case, if I understand your chat correctly, then it is not an issue so this image should have a note saying so. Maybe we need a standard note for cases like this.
    – Duncan
    Dec 15 '12 at 13:58
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Just because your ancestor filled out such a card does not mean he actually served. Here's a quote from the documentation on this collection on ancestry.com:

Not all men who registered for the draft actually served in the military, and not all men who served in the military registered for the draft. This civilian registration is often confused with induction into the military; however, only a small percentage of these men who registered were actually called up for military service.

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    Ah, thanks. In my mind, I had mixed together registering for the draft with actually being drafted.
    – David Smith
    Dec 12 '12 at 20:58
  • Do you have census records for him? The Census Bureau says "Veterans’ questions have appeared on every decennial census form since 1910, with the exception of 1920." census.gov/hhes/veterans/about/history.html That might provide clues as to whether he actually served in WWI.
    – Jan Murphy ♦
    Dec 2 '13 at 6:00

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