Alien Statements

This database contains records from New York City, New York State, New Jersey and the Virgin Islands. An Executive order of September 23, 1940 established the Selective Service System to provide a way to obtain men for military and naval service. Through local boards the System registered, classified and selected for induction, male citizens and aliens subject to service. A DSS Form 304 ("Alien Personal History and Statement") was issued to every alien classified by the local board as I-A, I-A-O, I-B and I-B-O. The completed four-page questionnaire contains a wealth of genealogical information. Since these records fall under the privacy guidelines, some records may be screened before being made available. The Alien Personal History and Statement files that are indexed here have been sent to the National Archives facility in St. Louis, Missouri. For information regarding how to obtain a copy of these records, please contact: National Personnel Records Center 1 Archives Drive St. Louis, MO 63138 Telephone: 314-801-0850 E-mail: stlarr.archives@nara.gov More information may be found on the NARA-St. Louis web site. Please note that the Surname (e.g. Last Name) is a required entry field. But since exact spellings are not always known, to aid your search we offer three different ways to specify Surnames. Exact Match ("is exactly"): This is the default surname search method. Soundex ("sounds like"): This option enables you to specify a surname spelling it out as best you can, and it will return results that "sound" similar to what you spelled out. Wild Card: With this option you can replace part of the surname with a * to match any number of letters, or _ to match a single letter. So for example, Sch* will return all names starting with Sch. Similarly, Schl_tz might return results such as Schlitz or Schlotz. For whichever of the above surname search options you would like to use, simply select the appropriate radio button option below the input field on the form. Although the additional form fields are optional, providing as much information as you can helps narrow your search. The more specific your search, the less time you need spend scrolling through search results!