United States Korean War Battle Deaths - FamilySearch Historical Records

United States

What is in the Collection?
This collection contains an index of military personnel who died hostile deaths during combat in the Korean War between 1950 and 1957.

This collection was acquired from the National Archives "Access to Archival Databases" (AAD). The records are from Record Group 330 Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Additional information about this collection may be found on the National Archives website. The event date is the date died or declared dead.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
Information found in this collection may include:


 * Full name of casualty
 * Military service branch (F=U.S. Air Force, A=U.S. Army, C=U.S. Coast Guard, M=U.S. Marine Corps, N=U.S. Navy)
 * Home of record (State)
 * Home of record—County for casualties in the Army, and city, town, or municipality for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps casualties
 * Date of birth (only year if birth is given for most Army casualties)

How Do I Search the Collection?
To begin your search it is helpful to know the following:
 * The name of your ancestor.
 * The birth date of your ancestor.
 * The place where your ancestor lived.
 * The military branch in which your ancestor served.

Search by Name by visiting the Collection Page: Fill in the requested information in the boxes on the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the individuals in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to look at the information on several individuals comparing the information about them to your ancestors to make this determination. Keep in mind:
 * There may be more than one person in the records with the same name.
 * You may not be sure of your own ancestor’s name.
 * Your ancestor may have used different names, or variations of their name, throughout their life.
 * If your ancestor used an alias or a nickname, be sure to check for those alternate names.
 * Even though these indexes are very accurate they may still contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the on-line article FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.

What Do I Do Next?
When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information about them. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors.

I Found Who I was Looking for, What Now?

 * Use the birth date along with the home of record to find your ancestor’s family in census records.
 * Use the home of record and name of your ancestor to locate church and land records.
 * Your ancestor’s occupation can lead you to other types of records such as birth or census records.
 * The information in this record varies depending on the military branch in which your ancestor served
 * Birth years are recorded with only two digits. For example, instead of recording the birth year as 1925, it will be recorded as 25.

I Can't Find Who I'm Looking for, What Now?

 * Look for variant spellings of the names. You should also look for alias names, nicknames and abbreviated names.
 * Try alternative search methods such as only filling in the surname search box (or the given name search box) on the landing page leaving the other box empty and then click on search. This should return a list of everyone with that particular name. You could then browse the list for individuals that may be your ancestor.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):