Contribute to History Hub

Explore History Hub:

The History Hub homepage features a current blog posts, recently asked questions, and a list of the subject area communities, including:

• Military Records
• Genealogy
• Researchers Help
• Women's Rights and Suffrage
• African American Records
• American Indian Records
• Presidential Records
• Citizen Archivists (support for contributors to our Catalog tagging and transcription missions)
• CROWD (managed by the Library of Congress for users of their transcription project)
• Technical Help and Support (Have other questions about History Hub or a technical issue?  Answers to common problems are here.)

Feel free to take a look at some of the recent questions and explore the communities that interest you.

Think you can help?  We’d love to have you!  See “Create an account on History Hub” below:

Share your knowledge

Contribute a blog post on a research topic you know well:

Is there a topic you’d like to write about that could address common requests or questions from researchers?  History Hub features a number of blog posts from NARA staff on common topics such as:

• World War II Submarine War Patrol Reports (more than 20K views since December 2019)
• WWII Military Unit Records at the National Archives (more than 31K views since August 2017)
• You Want to Find Out About an Indian Ancestor (almost 74K views since July 2017)
• Introducing the Record Group Explorer (over 78K views since October 2019)

These posts help researchers in their efforts and give us more detailed information to direct users to instead of repeating information in answers. Let us know what you’d like to write about and we’ll help you get started!

Help answer questions:

New questions come in to History Hub on a daily basis.  We are always looking for help to respond to these. Some of our typical types of questions include:

• 414th Bomb Squadron (97th Bomb Group) archival records 
• Trying to determine if Giuseppe Dragonetti become a U.S. citizen
• Seeking to Verify that Olympian Joseph Stadler was African American
• Seeking records about the USPS

If you’re interested in helping to respond to questions, get any necessary approval from your supervisor, then email historyhub@nara.gov and we’ll get you set up.  See “How to answer a question” below for some answer-writing tips.

How to answer a question:

Helpful answers on History Hub have a few common qualities:

• Professional: Use the same approach you would to answering any other reference question at NARA.
• Conversational: Remember that answers are posted publicly for everyone to see.  Be friendly without being too casual. 
• Links and images: Take advantage of the online format and include direct links to Catalog items and other online resources.  If feasible, you can even embed images of digitized documents and photos.
• Complete: Provide as complete an answer as you’re able to.  If there are resources at another institution that would be helpful, include any relevant links or guidance to locating these.
• Avoid duplication: If a question closely mirrors an existing answered question or blog post, link to that question with a short excerpt instead of duplicating the answer entirely.
• See the following questions and answers for examples of past NARA responses:
  • Trying to determine if Giuseppe Dragonetti become a U.S. citizen
    This does not actually involve any NARA holdings, but includes detailed information on contacting USCIS Records Services, plus additional links to the NY State Archives and Historical Society.
  • Seeking records of Camp Michaux, PA
    This response features detailed links to multiple series and file units in the Catalog, as well as information on contacting the Deutsche Dienststelle.
  • Seeking video filmed at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station
    This includes links to multiple items in the Catalog, as well as links to digitized video held elsewhere, and information on other agencies and sources.
  • Seeking official list of WWII Distinguished Flying Cross recipients
    The replies to this question feature several responses from a non-NARA “citizen archivist” who provided digitized images of records related to the question.

Contribute additional information on existing questions:

History Hub has nearly 4,000 existing questions from users. It also has had approximately 2 million page views since it began in 2016. Some especially helpful discussions include:

• How to get a DD256 (almost 16K views since it was posted in June 2018)
• Is there a list of purple heart winners from WWII? (more than 24K views since May 2017)
• Where would i look for a military award citation? (more than 14K views since August 2016)

You may know of newly digitized records, additional resources, and other information relevant to a question to provide a more complete and helpful answer.  Please feel free to contribute to these questions when you come across them. See “How to answer a question” above for additional guidance.