To county web site coordinator: The attached files represent my transcriptions of the civilian draft registration in 1917-1918 for your county. I hope you will find these of interest and make them available to persons reaching your web site.. WHAT ARE THESE? During the last two years of World War I, almost 24 million Americans were required to register for the military draft. I must emphasize civilian registration because only a small minority of these men was ever inducted into the military. A higher percentage of this American male population was reached by this process than by the 1920 census. In addition, the information provided was much more complete and reliable than the census information because the registrant was the person providing the information. Because many states did not have birth registration during the years these men were born, the cards serve the function of substitute birth records. Your county is only one of many hundreds that I have finished transcribing, and these other transcriptions are being made available to county web site coordinators. A complete, unified database of all my transcriptions will soon be available without charge at ancestry.com containing nearly a million names, but your smaller stand-alone county version has an advantage. Some names of illiterate men are badly misspelled, and seeing them in a small county list should allow a researcher to recognize the name. Printed versions of county and unified versions are also available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, but I have not given permission for microfilming since it is intended to preserve the compilations in an electronic form. I have included information about persons who registered outside your county when that person listed some link to your county -- such as birth there, next of kin living there, etc. It is possible I might want to send you an updated version of these files when more counties around the country are completed. Other persons listing a link to your county may surface in the additional transcriptions. OWNERSHIP/OTHER ISSUES: These documents are federal government documents on the public record. Anyone can obtain information from the original records or from the microfilmed version, which is a National Archives publication (about 6,000 reels). I am not placing any restrictions of your use of my compilation at your home page. Free copies of various printed draft card compilations have been distributed by me to major libraries. No other person has copyrighted my transcriptions or has any ownership rights. I have signed a license agreement with ancestry.com for use of my unified database only. I will periodically request copyright or other registration of the compilation as completions dictate. Over 99% of the persons listed in the compilation are deceased. All registrants were born between 1873 and 1900. I have omitted remarks protesting warfare or descriptions of disabilities or anything else that might cause public embarrassment. Since each draft card is a public document, it is inconceivable that any person could have any legal claim for violation of privacy or other tort due to publication of any information in these cards or -- for that matter -- in the 1900-1920 censuses, which have also been microfilmed and reprinted as various printed publications. The Social Security Administration has also published birth and death information from its files regarding deceased persons. Although great care was taken to assure accuracy of transcription, the researcher is advised in my typed prologue to each county file to consult the original draft card to verify information. Almost all the cards were easily readable, but where a spelling was in question a second entry in the compilation was made to show an alternative spelling. SUGGESTED NAME FOR THIS RESOURCE: There is some confusion in the public that "draft" means "military service" or “drafted” so I have avoided prominent use of the word "draft." It is difficult to encompass all the information in one short title because of exceptions and complications. My suggested title is: BIRTH DATA -- RESIDENTS, FORMER RESIDENTS ALIVE IN 1917 The text prologue explains the subtleties regarding which persons are included and not included and where the information was obtained. If there is anything I can clarify, I am available at RayHBanks@aol.com. However I do not check my e-mail each day. I am not available for individual research. My mailing address in 5435 Whitewood Dr., Taylorsville, UT 84118. INSTRUCTIONS FOR COPYING THE SUBFILES INTO YOUR SOFTWARE: To assure maximum compatibility with other software, two versions of text files with line feeds included. The version marked (your county) 1.txt contains exact spacing and no tabs. The version marked (your county)2.txt contains odd spacing, but has tabs which you can use to position the columns. These files can be copied or imported into your software as a text file without any loss of information. Your document may need to be reset to a slightly longer width than normal in order to show all the data on one line or you will have to use smaller fonts. If you choose to use exact spacing (File # 1), you must use a font without proportional spacing. Proportional spacing will cause the columns of text to move back and forth. If you choose to use tabs (File # 2): below is a list of the fields and their lengths which will allow you to specify locations of tab settings. Don't forget to first choose "Select all" in the Edit function to apply the tab settings to the entire document. Name.............................50 spaces Birth Date .......................11 spaces, plus allow a trailing blank space Ethnic Category ..................1 space, plus allow a trailing blank space Birth Location/Other Info 32 spaces County/City of Registration 18 spaces State 2 spaces Registration Dist # 5 spaces If your county is relatively large, you will probably want to break the master file into subfiles, arranged by letters of the alphabet. Don't forget to copy the prologue description into each subfile. In all my files, I have added blanks in front of dates that do not fill up the entire field, thus: 26 Feb 1886, ^6 Feb 1886, ^^^^^^^1886.