Michigan Discharge Records at the County Clerk

1867 PA 83 directs the county clerk of each county to procure, at county expense, suitable books in which to record discharges of members of the armed forces, and 35.32 requires the clerk to enter every discharge presented and to index it alphabetically. The confidentiality rule is the part that changed the character of the act. The military service discharge record of a person is confidential and may be viewed or copied only as subsection (2) allows. That is a modern protection grafted onto a nineteenth century recording statute, and it exists because a recorded DD-214 in an open county book is an identity theft document: it carries a full name, date and place of birth, and historically a Social Security number. The seventy year rule. A clerk may make available to the general public information in the record that is not less than 70 years old, and then only the name, rank, unit of military service, dates of military service, and medals and awards. "Seventy years old" means 70 years from the date of the individual's first discharge from military service. Genealogists and historians get the service outline and nothing else. Who may see the whole record. The veteran; a person with the veteran's permission; the surviving heirs of the veteran; and a veteran's service officer, the Michigan Veterans Trust Fund, or a person employed by the county department of veterans' affairs who provides counselling for veterans, where access is necessary to aid the veteran or the surviving spouse or a dependent in applying for benefits. What it costs. A clerk may charge members of the public for discharge records of veterans discharged 70 or more years ago, but a person in the list above shall not be charged for that veteran's records. The veteran and their service officer get copies free. In a county where the clerk is not salaried, the county pays the clerk between 50 cents and one dollar for each discharge recorded, and the clerk files a sworn quarterly statement of the number recorded with the county treasurer. Why it is worth doing. Section 35.35 provides that certified copies of the record, under the seal of the circuit court of the county where the discharge is recorded, shall be received as evidence of the contents of the original discharge in all cases where such evidence may be required. A recorded discharge is therefore a self-proving substitute for a lost DD-214 in any Michigan proceeding, and the National Personnel Records Center is not in the loop. The related state service. The Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency runs a DD-214 retrieval service for veterans who no longer hold a copy and never recorded one.