Ancestry.com makes war records public

? A Utah-based Web site, Ancestry.com, is commemorating the Memorial Day weekend by making historical records about U.S. military service members available to the public through an online free account.

It is both a public service and commercial promotion. The service is only free until D-Day, June 6, when subscribers will have to pay $155.40 a year.

Ancestry.com says the collection includes the names and gravestone details of 3.5 million deceased soldiers – including some Iraq war dead.

The free site also includes World War II enlistment records.

The Web site unveiled the promotion Thursday, boasting it spans more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War.