Frequently asked questions

A research platform for American soldiers of the Second World War, built directly from the records of the U.S. National Archives (NARA): Morning Reports, enlistment records, prisoner-of-war records, hospital admission cards, Signal Corps photographs and more. You can search for a soldier, see the original pages, and build his story in a timeline and on maps.

An independent historian in the Netherlands. See About for our details.

No. The Accounted is independent and not affiliated with NARA, the U.S. Army or any government. The records come from NARA's public holdings.

Yes. The Accounted is free for everyone until January 1, 2027, and almost everything stays free after that: searching the records, your soldiers, research projects, timelines, maps, the Collections, Matching Records and Find a soldier. Optional paid plans add extras, such as more soldiers, more room for files and more downloads. Compare the plans.

No. Nobody pays anything unless they choose the paid plan themselves.

Nothing is deleted. If a free account holds more than the free plan allows, everything stays there and stays readable; you just can't add more above the limit unless you choose the paid plan.

Choose a plan before February 1, 2027 and you pay the early-bird price for as long as your subscription runs without a break: Researcher €5 a month, Researcher Plus €16 and Professional €89. For Researcher your card is saved at checkout and nothing is charged until January 1, 2027; cancel before then and you pay nothing. Researcher Plus and Professional are paid at checkout and start straight away. There is no obligation. See the plans.

Use Find a soldier with his service number, or his name. A service number works best: names were often misspelled or shared by several men, but every soldier had his own number. Create a free account to open the records behind the matches.

Often on his discharge papers, dog tags, letters, a grave marker or a family document. Without one, search by name and narrow it down by state or unit; the research method explains the usual steps.

Not every record has been digitized by NARA, and 80-year-old scans don't always read cleanly. A service number can be smudged, handwritten or typed differently. If a search finds nothing, you can still browse his unit's Morning Reports month by month in the Collections, and in the Dashboard you can ask us to add a unit or month that isn't there yet.

No. A match is a strong lead, not a fact. Nothing is added to a soldier's record automatically: you look at the page yourself and decide whether it belongs. See how record matching works.

Daily reports every Army company kept during the war, recording who joined, who left, who was wounded, missing or killed, with their service numbers. They are often the closest record of where a soldier was on a given day.

We don't change the original records; they are kept by the National Archives. If a record is wrong or contradicts what your family knows, email contact@theaccounted.com and we can add a note.

The National Archives records and photographs shown are generally in the public domain. Please cite the source: every Morning Report page has a "Cite" tab with a ready-made citation including the NARA identifier. Content uploaded by researchers belongs to them.

No. To protect the people in the records and to keep the service available for everyone, searches are limited and bulk downloading isn't allowed. You can save and download the pages you need for your own research.

Before a record opens, we ask whether you have reason to believe the veteran is still alive, and every record has a "Report a living veteran" link. When someone says yes, the records of that service number are hidden on The Accounted straight away and any public profile is taken offline, before anyone has reviewed the report. A living veteran can give a relative or researcher access with our consent form.

Only you, unless you invite collaborators or choose to publish something. Nothing is public by default, and you can unpublish at any time.

In the European Union. Details are in the Privacy Statement.

In the Dashboard, under Settings: "Download everything" gives you a copy of all your data and files, and "Delete my account" removes your account and your research.

Use Report content for content that infringes copyright, violates someone's privacy or is otherwise illegal.

Your research workspace at dashboard.theaccounted.com: soldier profiles, Matching Records, research projects, timelines, the Collections, and map tools such as the Overlay Builder. It uses the same account as this website.

Yes. Searching, the records, soldier profiles and the Collections work on phones and tablets. The map tools (Map Builder and Overlay Builder) work best on a computer.

Yes. You can invite others to a soldier, a research project or a category, as a viewer or as an editor.