Tips for Conducting Military ResearchNote: For Van rides to Portland VA hospital please contact YCAP at (503) 472-0457.If you are sending off to National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis Missouri, make sure that you are either the veteran or next of kin.
Electronic SF 180 Form for a veteran and next of kin only!
If you are NOT the next of kin, you are able to receive a deleted copy which may be of no value to you or your research. Please Remember!!! If you get a phone call or letter in the mail, when you call that number the individual on the other end of the phone has TOTAL CONTROL over which information that they will give you(controlled by the privacy act).
Paper SF 180 Form for other than Veteran or Next of kin
Request the following to receive your complete military records and replacement medals:
- Service Records
- Service Medical Records
- Personnel (201) File
- MOS and Duty Assignments
- Special Training Accomplished
- Medals/Citations/Ribbons Awarded
If you request ONLY your DD 214, the turn around time is only a few weeks. If you request other information such as the above list, you will get your entire records as well as a replacement set of medals sent to you. However the paper documents can take up to 3-18 months and your replacement medals up to 18 months or longer.
Useful websites that might help in a search:
If you know of anyother helpful sites please call and we will add them to this list, Thank You!
Basic information on conducting a web search for information on family or buddies that you might have lost contact with:
- Prior to January 1, 1950 the discharge/separation documentation wasn't a DD 214. Each branch of service had their own form numbers therefore if you are looking for a family members DD 214 and can't locate it, possibly you will need to look for another form number such as: NAVPERS-553, NAVPERS-661, NMC 258 A & I , NMC 2571 A & I, NAVCG-2510, Army DS ODF.
- Searching for records using service numbers or social security numbers.You will rarely find anything online with these listed unless it was posted from someone who is sharing their military family history. These are the years that changed from service numbers over to social security numbers:
Army and Air Force - July 1, 1969
Navy and Marine Corps - January 1, 1972
Coast Guard - October 1, 1974
Also if the Veteran was in during this time, it would be helpful to send/search for files using both. If you are requesting military records from National Personnel Records Center, put as much information as you possibly can on the SF-180!
- When browsing any large websites, use the F3 function to search for key words (last names) instead of having to read through the entire site to see if the information you are seeking is there your search will be easier.
- Use small information from one website to help aid in the search on another. (i.e. get a state the person lives in, then conduct a phone search for only that state, or narrow it down to a specific city, background research web-sites to get ages and states lived in for free). Use quotes around names or specific things you wish to be search for together. "GI Joe" will bring back those exact words in that order, so after that you could put "GI Joe" "1st Cavalry Division."
- Search for the unit rather than the company or squad level entity. There are a lot of websites that have Division information on them, and smaller sections that have been submitted by military veterans or their families to keep their honor alive.
- Search for reunion organizations. Both from high school era, as well as reunion organizations for the military services. Try to not be to specific at first, until you narrow the search down getting some of the results you are needing.
- Use the locator services in the back of many military magazine periodicals. You can have a request put in the magazine, looking for anyone in their unit during the years that the veteran was enlisted.
Locators are found in the follow:
- If you think the person might be deceased, conduct a social security death search on Rootsweb.com.
- Try to remember which part of the country they were from. Remember accents, or some of their hobbies might strike a bell to as if they fished on the Great Lakes or in the slues of the Mississippi river delta. A lot of times, people tend to stay in the same climate that they were raised in, however some other good tips are to search for the warm dry places! The older that we get, the more winters wear on us so looking in the southern states has proven effective many times. Who wouldn't want to be enjoying some nice dry Arizona heat in the debt of winter?
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Yamhill County Veterans Services 701 E Ford St. McMinnville, OR 97128 Phone:(503) 434-7503 |
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