Searching military databases

From any page on Ancestry, search all military records by clicking the Search tab and selecting Military.

If your search results contain more records than are helpful, try adding information to your search one field at a time until you get results you can use.

Gathering information

The first step in research is to gather the information you already have. The following records tend to be most useful:

Service records
Journals, diaries, and letters
Photographs
Obituaries and newspaper clippings

Interviews with family members can be helpful as well. Take notes regarding names, dates, places, and military branches that family members recall, and use that information as the basis of your search.

Resources on Ancestry

Search all military records on Ancestry with our Military Records database.
The U.S. Military Collection on Ancestry contains more than 100 million names and 700 titles and databases of American military records.

Search U.S. record collections