NARA Records Added to WorldVitalRecords
Today, a press release from WorldVitalRecords.com offers the answer to my question. These databases, including more than 10.2 million records, are being posted at WorldVitalRecords as part of an agreement with the National Archives. The databases, including the Irish Famine passenger and ship records, World War II Army Enlistment Records, Korean War Dead and Wounded Army Casualties records, and other military records, will be available for free access through April 6, and will then be available only to subscribers.
The benefit, I guess, is the improved search capabilities - including the ability to search across all of the databases at once. This is an improvement over the two different database systems in place at the National Archives - Access to Archival Databases (AAD) and the Archive Research Catalog.
As a subscriber to WorldVitalRecords, the increased search access is nice. For those who aren't subscribers, I can't say the benefit outweighs the cost of a subscription. If you find other records of interest at WorldVitalRecords then a subscription is very reasonably priced. But if the NARA records are all you are interested in, you can access them online at Archives.gov for free:
Comments
Perhaps another reason might be that given the chronic underfunding of the National Archives, who knows how long the current free online databases will continue to be available? I doubt that NARA would charge for such access, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find they abandon providing the online data altogether, in the name of budget cuts.
As always you’re on top of things with this information Kimberly. Thank you! I’m not a WorldVitalRecords subscriber and am a little concerned about this. I hope Michael isn’t right about the NARA abandoning their online data in the name of budget cuts but I fear he may be right.