If you've ever served in a branch of the United States military and would like to look someone up that you served with, then this list of free military people search databases is for you. Unless otherwise noted, all these military people search resources are free.
Free Military People Search Sites
- Military.com Buddy Finder: Search over 20 million records for military buddies. Military.com searches for military personnel from four different sources: the Military.com member and Missing Buddy databases, the Department of Defense personnel records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and the White Pages.
- USMC Military Reunions: Search for not only Marine reunions here, but all services upcoming and past reunions.
- The American War Library: "The World's Largest On-line Military, Veteran, and Military Family Registry..Over 51 million Military Listings from Pre-Revolutionary War to the Present." This is an enormous site and can be overwhelming. Start with the Index contents and work out slowly from there; it's well worth the time you'll need to get acclimated to this wealth of information.
- The Unofficial Air Force Email Locator: You can post your name to the database for free; at the time of this writing they had over 29,000 listings of past, present and retired military personnel.
- Navy WorldWide Locator: "The Navy's World Wide Locator is a service established to find the present duty station of active duty personnel, and is for official business use only. Family members, active duty personnel and Navy retirees may also use this system. To do so, you must have the service member's full name, Social Security number, grade or rank, and, if possible, last known duty station."
- Shipmate Search: for the Navy, Merchant Marine, US Maritime Service, Naval Armed Guard, etc.
- The Citadel People Search: Find Citadel faculty, currently enrolled students, and staff.
- Department of Defense - Locator Services: Make sure you have as much information as possible before using this service.
- The Vietnam Era POW/MIA Database - Library of Congress: "This database has been established to assist researchers interested in investigating the U.S. Government documents pertaining to U.S. military personnel listed as unaccounted for as of December 1991."
- Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office: Here is a list of the family resources available to search for missing military personnel.
Looking for more free people search resources?
- Top 10 Ways to Do a Free People Search On the Web: Do a free people search online with free people search engines, people search locator tools, and check out my review of good people search sites.
- Find People Free With Zabasearch: Simply put, Zabasearch is a free people search engine that scours freely accessible public information and records.
- Top 10 Free Public Records Search Picks: Looking to do a free public records search on the Web? I've put together a Top Ten list of where to find the best free public record search databases online, from obituaries to census records.
