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Missing Ohio WWII draft registration cards?

DanielGonik
DanielGonik ✭
February 24 edited February 24 in Search

Hi,

I have a question: I was searching for Ohio WWII draft registration cards, specifically for Michael (or Micheal) DeSantis (his WWII draft registration card lists him as being born on May 26, 1899 but his birth record lists him as being born on March 26, 1900, but what his birth record says isn't really relevant here), but when I was searching for this document among the relevant records, I noticed a gap in the records:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/3757144

Draft Registration Cards for Ohio, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/3158, Denike, Charles – Dennis, Jacob, 10/16/1940 - 03/31/1947

is immediately followed by:

Draft Registration Cards for Ohio, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/3342, Dibrell, Guy – Dickerson, Ned, 10/16/1940 - 03/31/1947

So, where exactly is DeSantis supposed to be? It appears to be in between these two categories of last names, but there doesn't appear to be an intermediate group of WWII draft cards here. So, what exactly is going on here? Did some WWII draft cards not get uploaded yet, or what?

Ancestry.com already contains Michael (or Micheal, but it's supposed to be spelled Michael) DeSantis's WWII draft registration card, after all, so why doesn't Familysearch.org? What is the specific issue here? Does anyone here know?

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Answers

  • DanielGonik
    DanielGonik ✭
    February 24

    FWIW, Michael DeSantis died in December 2009 at the age of 109 (claimed age 110), but this shouldn't be relevant here because there are many people who died after him who do have their WWII draft registration cards shown on Familysearch.org.

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  • MandyShaw1
    MandyShaw1 ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 24

    @SerraNola is this something you could get looked at please?

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  • IrvS
    IrvS ✭
    February 24

    @DanielGonik Thanks for your question. I may be confused but at the top of the WWII Registration Card it states that it is for those born after1877 and before 1897. If Michael was born in 1899 or 1900, he would not have to have registered. Please check the one you have and if you need further help, get back to me.

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  • Áine Ní Donnghaile
    Áine Ní Donnghaile ✭✭✭✭✭
    February 24 edited February 24

    Michael Desantis, b 26 May 1899, has a World War II Young Men's draft, dated 1942.
    https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/32628490?mark=7b22746f6b656e223a224b5a4b773368664f39394664464f2f317063653563656551614b6c75514b65636654744348716c776631633d222c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d

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  • SerraNola
    SerraNola mod
    February 24

    @DanielGonik Previously we had 70 DGS from the Montana WWII collection blended in with Pennsylvania. I'm not sure if that is the case here as they are not indexed so I can't search by name to see where they end up. The numbers aren't in order so that makes it hard. I estimate at least 300 missing from this Ohio collection. I will pass it by engineers and see if they can get a list of the original DGS #'s to search the catalog in the hopes that they've just been misplaced.

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  • DanielGonik
    DanielGonik ✭
    February 25
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/587477#Comment_587477

    Yes, I mentioned that in my OP here. The crucial question, though, is why exactly can't I find it on Familysearch.org?

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  • DanielGonik
    DanielGonik ✭
    February 25

    @Irv Schuetzner Thanks, but something still confuses me: The source that I linked to and searched doesn't state Fourth Registration (which would be the Old Men's WWII draft—1877 to 1897, as you mentioned):

    https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/3757144

    There is a separate source that states Fourth Registration, but I didn't actually search that source:

    https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/1200825

    Which raises the question: Just how many, if any, WWII draft cards for men born after 1897 are there in the first source? And just how many are still missing?

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  • DanielGonik
    DanielGonik ✭
    February 25

    @SerraNola Thank you very much! And Yeah, it's a huge shame not to know where certain WWII draft cards are located. This is especially hurtful when it comes to WWII draft cards of men who lived to an extremely old age.

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  • IrvS
    IrvS ✭
    February 25

    @DanielGonik Thanks for the response. I had looked at the 1942 list. There were 12,000 in that list (2 batches of 6K) in Ohio. Since the registration was done on such a local level, quality of the cards was lax in many smaller communities. They were probably also transcribed to a larger manifest. I doubt that anyone creating the cards thought they would be used as identification. Since many are in different handwriting, I would suspect applicants were handed a card and told to fill it out. Also, it seems obvious, that there were various lists released at different times from the federal level. Many opportunities for error. One of my uncles had his actual card, that was given to him by his neighbor, who worked in the office! They are great as a hint to further information and as a remembrance of heroic service!

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  • Zonk91
    Zonk91 ✭
    March 11
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/587584#Comment_587584

    Hi! Daniel Gonik here, from an alternate account (I created it a while back because I had problems with my account, so I wanted to do some tests with a different account; hopefully there should be no problems with this).

    There might indeed be many opportunities for error, but I still can't seem to believe that a whole bunch of WWII draft registration cards are just gone like that. I suspect that they are simply somewhere else but indexed incorrectly, or perhaps not uploaded yet at all.

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  • Zonk91
    Zonk91 ✭
    March 11

    @SerraNola Please give us any updates in regards to this. Because it really would be nice to find these missing WWII draft registration cards. All of them.

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  • SerraNola
    SerraNola mod
    March 11

    @Zonk91 We've determined that the films have not been misplaced, but were not loaded with the last update. Waiting to hear back on when it will be corrected.

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