Best way to enter info from WWII draft registrations?

[michelec 0]

Hi All,

 

I have a bunch of WWII draft registrations. They all occurred in April 1942 and include address, birth date, place of birth, name of person who will know the person's address (not always the wife), employer, employer's address, height, weight, eye color, hair color, complexion.

 

Would it be a good idea to make new tags for height, eye color, hair color, etc., or would that be too much information?

 

How should I cite these cards?

 

Thanks,

Michele

[Terry Reigel 0]

Michele,

 

It's totally up to you. What do you want to do with the information? How would you want it to appear, if at all, in any printed report or website you may make from the data in the future?

 

First, I make the draft card a Source for the person's Name and Birth Tags, and when a parent or spouse is mentioned, for their name tag and the relationship or marriage tag.

 

Then I use a custom Draft Registration Tag to record the fact that they registered, where they were living, and employer. I like this better than using a Living and Occupation tag because it explains why the information is known at this particular point in time. I don't record the physical description.

 

For citing this source, I use a "lumper" approach, using split CDs, and have created a single Source in TMG:

 

FF: [RECORD TYPE]

 

SF: [CD1], [RECORD TYPE], roll [CD4]

 

Biblio: [REPOSITORY ADDRESS]. [REPOSITORY]. [RECORD TYPE]. Micropublication

 

Reminder:

CD1= name of registrat

CD2= serial number

CD3= date of registration

CD4= roll no. of film

CD5= notes

 

The Repository is the National Archives.

 

Record Type = Selective Service Registration Card, World War II, Fourth Registration

 

Comments = seen on Ancestry.com

 

If I were starting over, I'm not sure I'd use this lumper approach as it doesn't work all that well on my website created with Second Site.

 

My custom Tag Type for recording the registration uses the Sentence:

 

[P] registered for the draft for World War II

[michelec 0]

Thanks, Terry. That is, of course, my primary quandry regarding sources: To lump or separate? In the past, I have lumped (primarily with electronic databases) and have separated (census).

[Terry Reigel 0]

You're welcome, Michele.

 

I've waffled over the years, but am moving toward splitting for original records, but treating databases as a single record. I used to lump my census sources by county/reel of film, but a year ago went back and split them down to household level. I may yet to that for draft cards.

 

However, when I'm using a database of compiled data I've come to regard the database itself as the source, and enter whatever record identification applies to the CD.

 

Perhaps splitting the difference, I've been treating deed books, or even sets of them, as a source, rather than the individual deed, in part because in some cases I've got hundreds of deeds in a single book, and sometimes cite a dozen or more of them in a single tag.