On Sunday, April 26, 1942, Frank Miller woke up in his North Portland home. It was a sunny morning, and he and his wife had a breakfast of cinnamon biscuits, waffles, and maple syrup. He then bicycled over to the Kenton Fire Station to register for the draft.

He filled out a card where he printed his full name, place of residence, telephone, age, place of birth, date of birth, name and address of a person who will always know his address, his employer’s name and address, height, weight, eye and hair color. He had an injury to his left hand, so he included that in the "other obvious physical characteristics" section.

This was World War II, and a draft registration seems like a normal occurrence. However, the Selective Service Administration’s Fourth Draft Registration was for men who were born on or after April 28, 1877 and on or before February 16, 1897. They were the "old men," and many had already served in the armed forces. Due to age and prior service, few would be liable for military service. This draft was organized to create a body of information about the men’s skills for possible use.

The original registration cards are now at the various National Archives (NARA) regional facilities. For a complete list of NARA facilities, go to www.archives.gov/facilities.

The cards for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington are in the Seattle Branch. They are in alphabetical order for each state, and are easy to locate. If you had an ancestor who was born in the age range, it is worth your time to visit the Seattle branch of NARA and copy the cards.

The NARA facility in Seattle has extensive microfilm holdings for genealogy research. These include the entire set of Federal population censuses, Revolutionary War pension records, passenger indexes for most U.S. ports and the World War I draft registration cards for the Northwest states.

Another source for the World War II draft registration cards is Ancestry.com, a subscription website. They have placed digital images of cards for many states on their site. However, they haven't digitized Miller's card yet.

© 2000–2009

Connie Lenzen, CG^SM

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certified genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.