Families of Cayuga County World War II veterans now have access to previously unseen information about their relatives, thanks to the efforts of the Cayuga County Veterans Agency. Last month, the agency finished compiling a list of 3,470 veterans' names and organizing newspaper clippings into nine binders.

The agency's deputy director, Georgianna Tracy, was in charge of the project, which involved organizing the articles alphabetically.

Tracy spent upward of a year putting the notebooks together with the help of a volunteer.

“I think people will be really pleased that they're available and that they're in books,” Tracy said. “There's a lot of pictures, a lot of history. Probably the children didn't even know they existed.”

Having the articles available has already benefited Cayuga County residents in search of their families' history.

According to Tracy, one woman visited the office just as Tracy was working on her family's articles.

“She copied them and was just thrilled,” Tracy said. “She made copies to send to all of her family.”

This list comes in addition to Ray Keith's 2006 book “For Freedom.” “For Freedom,” a project Tracy also helped research, details the deaths of 267 Cayuga County servicemen.

The new index also includes about a dozen pages' worth of names of female service members who didn't appear in articles themselves.

The agency is encouraging family members of veterans to come see the notebooks, which are currently in their office on Genesee Street in Auburn. In the future, the notebooks may be relocated to the Historian's Office, where the clippings were housed originally in boxes.

The name index can be accessed online by e-mailing nvalenti@cayugacounty.us or by calling the agency at 253-1281.