Genealogy Today reports that more images that have been added to the Registry of World War II Ration Books. War Ration Books are actually of great benefit to genealogists.
Genealogists are always in search of new record sources when confronted with a brick wall. Well, can you think of a resource that not only gives you name, address, age and occupation, but also height and weight of a person? Interestingly, the ration books issued during World War Two attempted to capture these items.
In the United States, nationwide food rationing was instituted in the spring of 1942, and each member of the family was issued ration books by the Office of Price Administration (OPA). These books contained stamps and gave precise details of the amounts of certain types of food that you were allowed. Rationing insured that each person could get their fair share of the items that were in short supply due to the war effort and import reductions. By the end of the war, over a hundred million of each ration book were printed.
I believe the database now holds over 2,000 listings you can search by first and last name.
The site warns that the book covers were written by hand, and many with pencil, so they are often hard to read and difficult to enter in the database, though new technology is improving and more images are being added all the time.
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