That's what I
did today. I desperately needed to get my Civil War Pension files (what
I've ordered and received) in order. These are all Union pension files. I
do have one Confederate soldier who was killed in action and I plan to try and
locate a file for him. But, the confederate files are hard to come by.
These are
digital files in PDF format, so thankfully not a bunch of paper.
Since 2016
when I ordered my very first Civil War Pension file, to last month when I
ordered my most recent - I have been captivated by them.
They can
contain copious quantities of information or hardly anything at all. Most
of the time, though, they are filled with information about that military
ancestor, his family, his friends, his time in service, his health and so much
more.
I've found
Birth, Marriage and Death records/information and also letters. If you're
really lucky there might be a photo of the soldier. I'm told that only
about 5% contain photos. None of mine have, so far.
The smallest
one I've received is 21 pages and the largest
is 258
That's quite
a disparity. Just for fun I totaled all the pages from all pension files I have, and they came to a
whopping 2118 pages.
HOW PENSION FILES DO I CURRENTLY
HAVE?
22
The big question - how many have I
blogged about?
10
That's just
under half of the files I’ve received. Thus, my desire to create a spreadsheet
and enter every file I have, when I ordered them, when I received them, how
many pages they contain and whether or not I have written a blog post .....
yet.
My goal is to
review and write about them over the next couple of years. Don't worry,
I've perused all of them. Now I just need to really dig in and write.
There are many
ways to order these records. They are housed at the National Archives,
mostly in Washington, D.C., but some are housed at other locations, like St.
Louis.
Ordering
directly from the Archives is not only expensive but can also take a very long
time from order to receipt.
I've used 2
sources for my pension files.
Twisted
Twigs and most recently, Gopher
Records.
Both services
got me what I'd asked for in a timely manner.
I’d love to
hear about your discoveries if you’ve ordered Civil War pension files.
If you’d
like to see what a pension file looks like and read about the 10 pension files I’ve written about and the things
I found inside them, click here – CIVIL WAR
PENSION FILES
Happy hunting,
Michigan Girl
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION
I have several Civil War pension files. Probably the most interesting thing I've found is that my great grandfather was hospitalized several times for diarrhea. This plagued him for the rest of his life which was lengthy. He was 18 when he enlisted and died at age 75.
ReplyDeleteSome of those soldiers sure suffered after their service. Course there wasn't the medical treatments we have available today. Thanks for leaving a comment Cecily :)
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