Considering that during WWI many thousands of women served in industry, in the Armed Forces, and in the Red Cross, and that millions of women registered in the effort to conserve resources for the war, it’s likely that records associated with WWI will contain at least one of your ancestresses.
- For an overview of WWI military records, see FamilySearch.com’s Wiki at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/World_War_I_United_States_Military_Records,_1917_to_1918.
- To find a woman who served in the military as a nurse, ambulance driver, or in some other support roll, search Military Personnel records at the National Archives Records Administration in St. Louis. See https://www.archives.gov/st-louis/research-room for information on accessing these records. NARA also suggests searching the Discharge from the Draft records (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/5752997) and a NARA publication describes how to find women yeomen’s records at NARA (https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/fall/yeoman-f.html).
- Contributions of women in the military and related service organizations since World War I are documented at the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project (WVHP), of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). See http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/WVHP/.
- More information on women in the military during WWI can be found by googling phrases such as “Women Military WWI.”
- Red Cross nursing records are searchable online at Ancestry.com: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2365/.
- The roles of many women during WWI were recorded in newspapers. Search newspapers online or on microfilm for mention of your ancestress. For a frequently updated list of newspapers available online see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_online_newspaper_archives. A fairly comprehensive listing of newspapers on microfilm can be found at the Library of Congress’s website: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/titles/.
- The majority of women’s club members were involved in home front efforts to support the war. Discover their participation by researching women’s club scrapbooks and records. Check libraries, genealogy societies, and universities near your ancestress’s community to learn where women’s club records might reside.
- In addition, many Texas newspapers, women’s club records, and more can be found online at the Portal to Texas History: https://texashistory.unt.edu/.
From Stirpes, Volume 56, Number 2, June 2017, page 22.