Notes on Searching the "Old Man's Registration" World War II Database

Now that for a time Ancestry.com is offering free access to military records, it might behoove you as a researcher or interested party, to partake in this.

One does not have to always search this database by the registrant's name. If, for instance, you would like to know the names of all the registrants who were born in a particular town in the U.S. or Europe, e.g. Pultusk, Poland/Russia, all you would have to do is simply enter the word "Pultusk" in the "Location" field under the "Birth" section, and voila. Of course, you might miss some entries because the word "Pultusk" or other town name might have been spelled wrong on the registration card (and thus in the database).

It might also have been that the town name was left out and only the word "Poland" or "Russia" was written on the registration card. Whatever the case, a search such as I've suggested might lead to some interesting results, familiar surnames, etc., so it's worth looking into.

The records available here for searching are for the draft registration of 1942 (the "fourth registration") and were generally for men who were outside of the age range for active duty, but were required to register I believe just in case the U.S. Government needed them for the war effort in some way.

This fourth registration is the only one that is currently available to the public(because of privacy restrictions.) This "old man's registration" was for men born betwen April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897 (men between ages forty-five and sixty-four) who were not in the military at the time.

One can learn the name of the registrant, their age, birth place, place of residence, who their employer was (name of company/person, work address), the name and address of the person who would always know where the registrant was, as well as the physical characteristics of the registrant.

It should be noted that registration information is only available for twenty-three states and one territory. Still definitely worth checking out!

One can search the Ancestry.com database for this fourth registration by clicking here.

For those of you who would like to see the list of 115 Pultusk-born registrants, click here.