Ancestry.com announced yesterday that it had added more than 115,000 US Military Academy Cadet Application Papers (1805-1866) from West Point to its Web site. These applications will be added to its pay service, these papers and the rest of the Ancestry.com US Military collection will be free through Sunday. You can access the collections at http://www.ancestry.com/military.

The collections here that are free until Sunday include World War I and II draft registration cards, U.S. Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783, and U.S. Civil War Soldiers Records and Profiles, but we’re looking at the West Point applications, which are available at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1299.

You can search by first and last name as well as date and keyword. Results include registries of applicants, applicant letters, letters of recommendation, and notifications of acceptance as well as letters of acceptance. After some searching around I looked around the papers for Lewis J Ford. I got a few details about the record but had to go to the image to get an idea of what the record really was. (Registration is required to view records, but it’s free.)

The image showed me what appears to be a recommendation letter; I couldn’t find a transcript and it was kind of hard to read. Other records I looked at included a name index, a registry, and a couple other letters that are almost impossible to read. (Maybe I’m missing the transcripts.)

When it comes to the military records collection I find the draft registration cards a much more usable resource, but I can’t imagine you’d find the application papers/information in the West Point collection available in many other places … and it is available for free until Sunday. Check it out.