Ancestry.com has announced that the company will soon add the complete U.S. World War I Draft Registration Card Collection. The company's announcement says that you will "soon get access to new World War II Enlistment Records, World War II Prisoner of Ward records and many more." Yes, the announcement does say "Prisoner of Ward," obviously a minor typo error. I have to assume that the references to World War II records are deliberate.
The database will contain information from 24 million World War I draft cards, giving details about all men who registered, even those who didn't serve active duty. All males born between 1872 and 1900 were required to register for the draft. That's 25% of the entire U.S. population in 1917 and 1918.
Each card contains the registrant's address, date and place of birth, marital status, occupation, physical description and more.
You can read the announcement at http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=10595#FastFact
