Thanks for this. I have attempted this in the past, but as my stepfather changed his name (unofficially), and thereby disconnected both himself and his subsequent family from his own past, it has been virtually impossible to establish next of kin bona fides, even for his children, my (half) siblings. Plus, we cannot find any information that verifies that a service record even exists in his (original) name, or provides us with his service number. Is there not an index somewhere that at least provides names (and, hopefully, service numbers)?
