Family and Service Member History
How we can help
Unfortunately, the Minnesota National Guard does not maintain personnel records on individual service members. We do have some information on senior officers, unit commanders, and senior NCOs. In rare cases, we do have unit rosters.
We can provide historical information on our units. However, only a small fraction of our information is posted on this website.
We can help identify medals, patches, and insignia on the Veteran's uniform.
What you can do
Try to determine the Veteran's unit down to the lowest level possible.
Request their personnel records from the National Archives. Yes, many records were lost in a fire but they can often provide at least basic information.
Determine what city or state the service member lived in while serving. This will help determine their unit and which historical institution might be able to assist.
Review the History section of this website for online material and offline resources.
For 34th Infantry Division soldiers, review the historical material on the 34ID Association website.
For 34th Infantry Division and National Guard soldiers, conduct further research at these museums.
Any information on their grave marker? See FindAGrave, and DeathIndexes.
Did they receive a Purple Heart? Check with National Purple Heart.
Did they receive a Silver Star? Check with Home of Heroes.
Another awards database: https://valor.militarytimes.com
The veteran may have filed a DD214 or other paperwork with their county of residence. Check with them.
The Veteran's Administration has a few suggestions.
https://www.va.gov/records/get-military-service-records
Unit records: https://www.loc.gov/vets/bib-factsheet.html
Additional record sources:
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RS21282.html
Contact the Minnesota National Guard Command Historian at mn.ng.web@mail.mil