Electronic Army Serial Number Raw Files

In general, the records contain the serial number, name, state and county of residence, place of enlistment, date of enlistment, grade, Army branch, term of enlistment, longevity, nativity (place of birth), year of birth, race, education, civilian occupation, marital status, height and weight (before 1943), military occupational specialty (1945 and later), component, and box and reel number of the microfilmed punch cards.

These files were created by the Bureau of the Census by its Film Optical Sensing Device for Input to Computers (FOSDIC) system. FOSDIC read each punch card image up to ten times in an attempt to create a clean record and extract all characters from the original punch card. Usually, the first read will contain the majority of data extracted from the card image.

If all data could not be extracted, subsequent reads of the card image would result in additional records containing periods for characters successfully read on previous reads and ASCII characters for those interpreted on the current read. Multiple interpretations of the same character may be present across the multiple reads. A blank record separates records or groups of records pertaining to an individual punch card image.

Each file also contained a header record indicating the box and microfilm roll number and an end of file record. In cases where FOSDIC could not interpret any information from a punch card or series of punch cards within a file, FOSDIC inserted a record indicating ONE OR MORE RECORDS WERE UNREADABLE AT THIS LOCATION.Known gaps exist in the records. The files contain the following serial number ranges: A-001219 (WAC) through 1-814-015 (WAC), 00-001-099 through 12-249-074, 12-256-521 through 13-055-711; 13-056-075 through 14-190-244, 14-200-332 through 17-059-205; 17-059-208 through 18-122-477, 18-136-584 through 30-100-174; 30-100-175 through 32-333-703; 32-333-705 through 32-685-260, 32-732-562 through 33-336-219; 33-336-221 through 34-151-377; 34-151-379 through 35-059-730; 35-059-732 through 35-359-517, 35-424-000 through 35-991-720; 35-991-723 through 36-066-230, 36-106-809 through 36-487-999, 37-103-674 through 37-108-148, 37-338-373 through 37-420-579, 37-518-555 through 37-526-303, 37-564-707 through 37-580-369, 37-587-974 through 38-042-405; 38-042-406 through 38-250-853, 38-257-682 through 38-332-826, 38-340-717 through 38-348-917, 38-380-081 through 38-387-768, 38-496-665 through 38-504-463, 38-512-238 through 38-543-353, 38-551-092 through 38-574-473, 38-666-845 through 38-763-115, 38-772-844 through 39-265-119, 39-280-003 through 39-379-104; 39-385-633 through 42-015-410, 42-022-216 through 42-226-331, 42-254-214 through 42-261-860, 43-028-500 through 44-165-443; 44-165-444 through 45-999-999, 46-168-860 through 46-086-354 of supplemental records.

In addition, the scanning system was unable to interpret 160,390 groups of one or more punch cards within the valid ranges. This data comprises government records extracted from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). See the ARC catalog entry for this series for more information on this data and how to order it.