1942 WWII Draft Cards Destroyed

Where have I been that I am just learning "the original draft registration cards for the following states were destroyed." The cards were not first microfilmed. Oh, this makes me sad. A wealth of information is lost for those researching family from these states:

          Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee

Ancestry has updated one of its World War II databases for U.S. male citizens who registered. At the link below non-subscribers can see limited data on family who were born between April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897--men who were between 45 and 64 years old, and not already in service. Need a lookup?  Send me your guy's legal name, and I'll copy it for you.

          The Old Man's Draft: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1002

WHY I ADORE DRAFT CARDS: There have been many many times that I've not known where a relative was born or what his complete birth date was. Some family who appeared tall to me when I was five are instead listed as short in draft cards. Men whose black and white photographs taken when they were seniors were described as having red hair when drafted. Or having a ruddy complexion. Something I would not have known otherwise! Outside of a written narrative or medical records, military documents may provide the only proof of a someone's physical characteristics. 

While some short-sighted administrator in Georgia may have destroyed its 1942 collection, I found this link to many Georgia draft cards scanned by FamilySearch from the National Archives in St. Louis:

         https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1880573?collectionNameFilter=false

And there are two other databases for 1942 World War II draft cards at FamilySearch.org. Both are online and FREE to search. One is indexed and the other is not yet indexed by volunteers. Did you know that index is one of my favorite words? See the scanned docs here:

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1861144?collectionNameFilter=false

 and 

 https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1339071?collectionNameFilter=false


4 Jan 1941 in Keene, Texas

Always nice to find an ancestor in an archived newspaper! Especially one with whom I've happy memories of swinging me around and around the garden when I was a small giggly child. 

Grandpa was 36 in this photo that appeared in the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram newspaper