US, Missouri, St. Louis—Military Records, 1916–1939. M9NK-7HG

LarryClark43

I realize that there have been many questions asked concerning dates for this project.

I have another!!!

1. The person indexing this batch has indexed the date for D.S. or Abs as a priority above the roster Date. I personally thought the roster date was higher up the list but that depends on how you interoperate the field guide statement for #2 ranking: Date of events indicated by words such as "appointed," "mustered," or "inducted."

If such as indicates that other events should be included then one could include Duty service or absent as an event. The other statement that is a bit ambiguous is: If multiple enlistment dates were given, type only the earliest one. The D.S. and Abs dates are always earlier than the Roster date.

I am a bit reluctant to delete all of the hard work done by the indexer by overriding those dates with the Roster date.

Which date is correct??

John Empoliti

Priority 2 events above are meant to be synonyms for "enlistment." "appointed" as in appointed an officer. "mustered" as in mustered into the Armed Services. "inducted" as in inducted into the Armed Services. They are not meant for any ordinary event. The events whose dates they want us to record are the significant ones in the soldier's military - like the rest of the ones listed in the priority list.

MelissaHW

I believe DS means Detached Service. I am not sure that means the same thing as 'discharged' but I would err on the side of they do not mean the same thing. I could be wrong, though.

Here is the list of date priorities for reference:

(If multiple events were mentioned, use the one highest in the priority list.)

1. Date of enlistment.
2. Date of events indicated by words such as "appointed," "mustered," or "inducted."
3. Date of discharge or retirement.
4. Date when a roll was taken or roster was created.
5. Date when the soldier or sailor was wounded.

John Empoliti

I think DS means Duty Station:

Duty station means the place that is designated as an employee's official headquarters.

LarryClark43

Thank you John Empoliti, that is what I thought, and that is the way I have been indexing. I just wanted to check before I changed the dates to the Roster date.

Some times the instructions are a bit vague for my old head.