Mam-ma's Southern Family

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's Saturday Night again - Time for some more Genealogy Fun!! Our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)   Share something unexpected that you have found while researching an ancestor.   [thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!] Here's mine: I knew my grandfather, Tom J. Johnston, served in the United States Navy during World War II because I have a photo of him in his uniform. He is shown here with my mother. My grandmother saved his wallet after he died in 1971 and gave it to me sometime in the 2000s. One of the cards in the wallet was a Certificate of Discharge. I was excited because I needed his service number to order his military service record. The Navy records did not burn in the 1973 fire at the Personnel Records Office. He was discharged on 17 July 1944 at Farragut, Idaho. It didn’t occur to me then that he was discharged before the end of the war. I placed the order for his recor...

Not all records can be found online and this draft card for my grandfather, Tom J Johnston, is no exception. Tom was born in 1912 and was part of the group of men born between 1897 and 1927 who registered for the draft. [1] There were men born before 1897 who also registered for the draft and their cards can be found online at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org . These cards are often referred to as the “Old Man’s Draft.” So how did I get this card? I ordered the records from the National Archives in St. Louis. Information about how to order is here . There is a special form you fill out for the registrant you’re seeking and when the archives personnel find the record, you’ll receive a letter with an invoice to order the copies. The Registration Card is $7.00 and the Classification Record (including the Registration Card) is $27. [2] Draft Card [3] The date of the registration was October 16, 1940 at Stephenville, Texas. Most of the information on the card was typed exc...