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Getting the Most Out of the Civil War Pension Index, Part II
Military records are among the most sought after sources of information for family historians. Ancestry.com subscribers have access to several very helpful indexes to Civil War records. One of the most popular of these databases is the Civil War Pension Index,which allows subscribers to locate their ancestors in the index, and then view and print out digitized copies of the actual National Archives' Civil War Pension Index Cards for use in requesting records from NARA.
Connie Potter and Cynthia Fox of the National Archives have submitted the following guide for Ancestry.com users to help them understand the process for requesting these records from the National Archives, and to help avoid some common mistakes in their requests.
The first part of the guide addressed, "Ordering Copies of Original Pension Records from the National Archives." It appeared in the 7 June Ancestry Daily News and is available online at: http://www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4025.asp
This installment, part two, addresses "Ordering Copies of Original Compiled Military Service Records from the National Archives." Part three, "Changes in Ordering Copies of Original Pension and Service Records from the National Archives" is available in the Ancestry.com Library, and anyone who is planning on ordering these records, should read this as well. It outlines some recent changes in the procedures for requesting military records and addresses some common misunderstandings. It is available at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4005.asp.
I. Ordering Copies of Original Compiled Military Service Records from the National Archives
The Civil War Pension Index identifies the unit or units in which the soldier served. Each volunteer soldier has one Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) for each regiment in which he served. If he served in more than one company in the same regiment, all of that service should be in one file. The CMSR contains basic information about the soldier's military career. The CMSR is an envelope (a jacket) containing one or more cards. These cards typically indicate that the soldier was present or absent during a certain period of time. Other cards may indicate the date of enlistment and discharge, amount of bounty paid him and other information such as wounds received during battle or hospitalization for injury or illness. The soldier's place of birth may be indicated; if foreign born; only the country of birth is stated. The CMSR may contain an internal jacket for so-called "personal papers" of various kinds. These may include a copy of the soldier's enlistment paper; papers relating to his capture and release as a prisoner of war, or a statement that he had no personal property with him when he died. Note, however, that the CMSR rarely indicates battles in which a soldier fought. That information must be derived from other sources. A CMSR is as complete as the surviving records of an individual soldier or his unit.
The War Department compiled the CMSRs from the original muster rolls and other records some years after the war to permit more rapid and efficient checking of military and medical records in connection with claims for pensions and other veterans' benefits. The abstracts were so carefully prepared that it is rarely necessary to consult the original muster rolls and other records from which they were made. When the War Department created CMSRs at the turn of the century, information from company muster rolls, regimental returns, descriptive books, hospital rolls, and other records was copied verbatim onto cards. A separate card was prepared each time an individual name appeared on a document. These cards were all numbered on the back, and these numbers were entered onto the outside jacket containing the cards. The numbers on the jacket correspond with the numbers on the cards within the jacket. The War Department used these numbers for control purposes while the CMSRs were being created and the numbers do not refer to other records regarding a veteran nor are they useful for reference purposes today.
There are CMSRs for both Union and Confederate soldiers. While the Union CMSRs tend to be fairly complete, the Confederate jackets were created using the records that survived the War. The Union Army had captured some Confederate records. Additional records were borrowed from the former Confederate States. There may be a service record but it may not be complete or there may not be a service record. If someone is not documented in the Confederate CMSRs it does not mean that he did not serve, it only means that NARA does not have a compiled record of that service. At that point, you need to turn your research to the State Archives. On the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Web site at: www.nara.gov/genealogy/confed.html. This page lists the archival institutions in the former Confederate States, their addresses, and some information about how to conduct research with them.
The front of the Union soldier's jacket may also show a "Bookmark" which is an indication that another file exists in addition to the CMSR. These are usually references to correspondence files found in the Office of the Adjutant General of the Army. If you receive a copy, which has an R&P (Record and Pension) or VS (Volunteer Service) number in the "Bookmark," you should write to us at: Old Military and Civil Records National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20408. We will search for the referenced file and send you price quotation on an order form and instructions on how to obtain copies of that specific file. You can e-mail us at nnr1@nara.gov but be sure to include the entire file designation including any letters that precede the file number. Also include the soldier's name and service information. You need to be warned that sometimes the soldier that you are researching may be mentioned in a correspondence file, or a unit in which he served may be mentioned. These "Bookmarks" may not add much specific information beyond what you already have.
On the Genealogy page of the NARA Web site, there are guides to help you recreate the soldier's career. As mentioned above, the CMSR does not list the battles in which a soldier fought. It does, however, include information about the presence at muster for specific time periods. Using that information you can trace the history of the unit in which he served during various battles. Several published works contain information about Civil War units. The War Department's "War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" (Washington, 1880-1901; reprinted Harrisburg, 1971 and 1985) is a 128-volume work which reproduces in printed formats many of the battle reports and correspondence of Union and Confederate regiments. It is available on the Web at: cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.monographs/waro.html. Frederick H. Dyer's "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion" (Des Moines, Iowa, 1908; reprinted New York, 1959, and Dayton, 1979) contains brief histories of Union regiments. Dyer's "Compendium" is available online at: carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/DL/chron.htm. Charles E. Dornbusch's "Military Bibliography of the Civil War" (New York, 1961-72) contains bibliographies of Union and Confederate regiments. These publications should be available at a large reference library.
The average CMSR is eight to ten cards long. Some are much larger and some are smaller. When you request copies of a service record using the NATF Form 86, "Order for Copies of Military Service Records," you will receive the entire file for a single fee. You can get blank forms by e-mailing us or calling us. The number to call is 1-800-234- 8861 or 301-713-6800 and the e-mail address is: mailto:inquire@nara.gov
We are working on creating an online order form but we are not there yet. Do not try to electrostatically reproduce the forms. Each form has a unique number. If you send us six forms with the same number, we will mail them back with six new blank forms. Status tracking needs a unique number for each request. Remember to pull off the pink copy of the form NATF 86 for your records. It has the form number "G###" and it has the phone number and address to call or write. Do not forget to write your name and address on each and every order. Since we have a new order processing system, we don't get the original forms anymore. We get scanned images delivered to us electronically. We can't process an order without a name and address.
NARA cannot do substantive research for you. Reading several files to see if any of the match meager identification is substantive research. If you request a specific file, we can search for that file and provide you with copies. Our success is based entirely on the work that you do before you send the request to us. If there are too many soldiers in a unit with the same name, we will return the request to you for additional information. Using the unit information in Civil War Pension Index is one way to ensure that the file you want is the file that you get.
Those interested in requesting military records from the National Archives should also read, "Changes in Ordering Copies of Original Pension and Service Records from the National Archives" at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4005.asp
You can read part one of this guide online at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4025.asp
A big thanks to Cynthia Fox and Connie Potter at the National Archives for putting this guide together for us. There is more information on this subject at the National Archives' Genealogy Page at: www.nara.gov/genealogy
(Copyright © 1998-2001, MyFamily.com Inc. and its subsidiaries.), "Ancestry Daily News" (http://www.ancestry.com/dailynews)
Newsgroups
Newsgroups allow you to communicate with large numbers of fellow genealogy researchers.
Until recently you could only access newsgroups through your ISP (Internet Service Provider), and built-in or third party software was required to read and post newsgroup messages.
However this has all changed since the popular search engine Google.com acquired the main newsgroup provider deja.com.
Google.com allows you to post messages on "Usenet" ( the portion of the internet newsgroups reside on) through Google Groups.
What is the difference between Google Groups and Usenet?
"Usenet refers to a distributed computerized bulletin board system begun in 1979 at Duke University. Usenet users can post messages in newsgroups that can be read by anyone with access to the system and special news reader software. Over the years, the number of newsgroups has grown to the thousands, hosted all over the world and covering every conceivable topic about which humans converse.
Google Groups is the world's most comprehensive archive of postings to Usenet, dating back to 1995. Google Groups eliminates the need for a news reader and lets you search this archive in the same you would search HTML pages on the Internet. You can also use Google Groups to post your own comments to a newsgroup." ( Google.com)
Note: If you want to read newsgroup messages through the email program Outlook Express, follow the instructions below:
First establish whether your internet service provider provides a Usenet service - it may be referred to as "newsgroups" or "news". If your ISP does support Usenet, you will need to find out the name of its news server, for example, news.nameofISP.com. You should be able to find this in the help section of your ISP's homepage.
In order to set up the news account in Outlook Express, first click on Tools/Account and select the News tab. Click on the box marked "Add" in the top right hand corner and click on "News" in the pop up list that appears.
The connection wizard will ask you to supply your name and email address. Next enter the name of your news server in the box marked "News (NNTP) server". Unless your ISP has specified otherwise, leave the box marked "My news server requires me to log on" unchecked.
Click "finish" and you will be invited to download the newsgroup headings for the account just added.
As soon as the setting up process has been completed the Newsgroups Subscriptions window will pop up, which contains a list of available newsgroups. You can type the name of the newsgroup you want to subscribe to in the search box. Once you have located it click on the "subscribe" box. If the newsgroup you want is not available you can contact your ISP and ask them if they can provide it. Or alternatively, you can access it at Google Groups.
To read messages make sure the folders window is displayed by clicking on view/layout and checking the "folder list" box. Within the folder list you should see the name of your news server, together with the newsgroups you subscribed to earlier.
As you click on each newsgroup, the messages will begin to download and will appear in the message pane on the right. Click on each message to read the contents.
Newgroup Netiquette
Once you've spent time observing the newsgroup postings of other people, the time will come when you will want to make a post yourself. There are a few newsgroup guidelines to follow when posting messages to newsgroups or mailing lists.
Remember to quote only as much as you need. Delete parts of a message that you are not responding to. You only need to quote enough of the message to let the readers know what you are talking about.
Follow the links below for all the answers to any questions you may have regarding the use of "Google Groups":
Note: you must be connected to the internet to view these websites.
Google Groups FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Google Groups - Usenet Glossary
What are the main genealogy newsgroups available?
ALT. Newsgroups
alt.culture.cajun
alt.family-names.*
alt.genealogy
SOC. General Interest Newsgroups
soc.genealogy.misc - General genealogical discussions.
soc.genealogy.computing - Genealogical computing & internet resources.
soc.genealogy.marketplace - Genealogy services and products.
soc.genealogy.medieval - Genealogy in the period from approximately AD500 to AD1600.
soc.genealogy.methods - Genealogical methods (Moderated)