90m US war records to go online!

[RuthB]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070524/...gy_war_records

"WASHINGTON - For every generation in this country there has been a war. And with wars come millions of records that can shed light on family history, detailing everything from the color of soldiers' eyes to what their neighbors may have said about them.

On Thursday, Ancestry.com unveils more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975. The site also has the names of 3.5 million U.S. soldiers killed in action, including 2,000 who died in Iraq.

The records, which can be accessed free until the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner-of-war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records, among others."

Apparently it took them $3m and a year to build the archive. I've been doing some family history research lately myself, so I know how much effort is involved in this stuff! I'm impressed by this, that's quite a wealth of info to have at hand!