Free Access for WWII Records

[Rosie1223]

www.footnote.com

Free access for WW2 records for the month of December

[eleny]

1. Your post helped me find someone

I'd been looking for an uncle for a long time. A friend told me about Footnote and I was able to finally find another relative there a few weeks ago. But you got me to thinking about Footnote again and I tried finding my uncle there tonight.

He turned up in the 1930 census. I'm not a member there so I couldn't see the document. I took the county/town and ed data into Ancestry and searched by the 1930 Census instead of by name and found him.

They had the family name misspelled. The last letter of the last name was interpreted wrong from the census page.

Thanks for the nudge!

[eleny]

2. Yet another family popped up at Footnotes

My great uncle and family showed up as one of the choices in the list of families in the 1930 census. I couldn't open the info but I had a clue: the E.D. I just went through that ED at Ancestry and found them with the surname misspelled by one letter.

That search started because I was going through my mother's old Lives of the Saints book where she made notes and kept holy cards from funerals. I never knew my great aunt's first name since we always called her Ciocia (sounds like tsaw-tseh) which is the Polish word for "aunt". Odd, since we aren't Polish. But anyhow, mom wrote a note on the saint's day with a similar first name to Ciocia's. That got me to thinking about trying again only this time I went to Footnotes to see if it led me anywhere.

I'd been looking for an uncle and this great uncle for years and now in one week found both. But that's how it goes. Sometimes you just hit a hot streak.

[frogmarch]

3. How can I access prison records?

My sister and I were shocked to learn recently through reading letters our dad wrote to our mom in 1951 that our uncle, our dad's brother, who served in the Navy during WWII, spent 42 months in the military prison at Ft. Missoula, Montana.

He died in 1959. He never married, nor did he have any children as far as we know. How can we, his nieces, obtain his prison record? We'd like to know what the charges against him were. In other words, we'd like to know what our loving, funny uncle did to have been sentenced to 42 months behind bars.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[eleny]

4. Wiki has some info on the prison

"For a number of years, Fort Missoula was a subinstallation under the accountability of Fort Carson, Colorado."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Missoula

Since the Fort was decommissioned in 1947 and the buildings dismantled, perhaps the records went to Fort Carson.

I understand that Navy records aren't available for WW2. But maybe these prison records are available.

[frogmarch]

5. Thanks!

I'll check into it.

I appreciate your help. Thanks again.