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INDEX |
HOW TO GET PENSION FILES FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES BY MAIL? |
WHAT CAN YOU FIND IN A CIVIL WAR PENSION APPLICATION FILE? |
General Index to Pensions 1861-1934 | |
Archer's in the military Indexed |
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[GWA comment: This is General Index to Pensions 1861-1934 published in "The Archer Quarterly" publication of The Archer Association, an ARCHER surname clearinghouse. The Quarterly is no longer published, but the Association helps anyone doing Archer research on any Archer lines, not just Patrick's descendants. For more information on the Archer's on whom I comment, contact: George Archer Internet: garcher@wdn.com
Complied by: For the benefit of those curious about my connection to Patrick:
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HOW TO GET PENSION FILES FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES BY MAIL |
On 1 November 2000, the National Archives changed its procedures and fees
for requests of veterans' records, charging a fixed fee for an entire file
($37) or a pre-defined package of selected documents ($14.75). Veterans with Revolutionary War pension applications and bounty-land warrant application files are combined in the same filmed file; a request for the pension file will get you the bounty-land warrant file as well. It is not clear to me which fee applies to these records, the microfilm-to- xerox fee @$1.90 per page or the Bounty land warrant application file charge of $17.25, but probably the former since the pension and warrant applications were filmed under the pension numbered file.
If the veteran served in WWI or a later war, the Archives does not have
these records. To get these records you must write to:
You must use NATF form 85 for a pension request. You can ask for as many copies of the forms as you need, but only one form can be used for each pension file. Allow about 3 months for a search, or if you are in a hurry check, "Genealogical Helper" for a records searcher to go to the Archives and do it for you. You will definitely need a searcher or have to search in person if there are more than one persons of the same name serving in the same military unit. The Archives will not search several files on persons with the same name for you if, by using the information you provide, they cannot be sure that the file pertains to the person about whom you are requesting. Payment: Don't send money until the records are located, copied, and you are billed. You then have 30 days to pay. |
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WHAT CAN YOU FIND IN A CIVIL WAR PENSION APPLICATION FILE? | |
A Civil War (Union, not Confederate) pension application file is
particularly valuable because it can provide the data that will close the
broken link between the 1840 and 1850 U.S. census, especially if the
veteran was born before 1844, that is, was older than 17 in 1861.
The minimum you can expect to find in the pension application file, even if the veteran had died at the time of filing and the, widow or minor survivor of the veteran made the application: Name and age at enlistment, place of birth, where and when enlisted, where served, physical disabilities arising from military service (sometimes medical charts and a series of medical exams to support his claims and resubmitted claims over the years). If the widow made the pension application, she provided the following: date and place of death of her husband, date of marriage, maiden name, marital status when married (widowed or divorced), subsequent remarriages, names and date/place of birth of their children and affidavits from friends, neighbors, relatives attesting to the above facts. The documents in the pension application file may span 30-40 years depending on whether the veteran, his widow or his children filed the application. In summary, the pension application files are an extremely rich genealogical lode to mine. |
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General Index to Pensions 1861-1934 (Extracts) National Archives (Microfilm T-288) |
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Comments: These are extracts of the card indexes to the Civil War Pension
applications and files for persons named ARCHER and some possible ARCHER
surname variants. To save space blank lines on the index cards have been
omitted. The National Archives needs all of the numbers to do an adequate
search, including the numbers in the "Remarks" section which
usually show
that some of the files were combined into a new file (e.g. "XO").
The index itself has some valuable genealogical information. You can deduce the approximate date of death of the veteran by the date his wife or heir applied for their survivor pension. The guardian or minor listed in the index is a clue that the mother remarried if there is another surname listed or that both parents were dead and a minor heir has a claim to the pension. Other entries may include only the veteran's parent's name. Keep in mind though that the state listed in the "Service" line may or may not be where they lived. Civil War units sometimes recruited its members as it marched. Other units were formed through mass enlistments of an entire community with neighbors and relatives joining the same unit at the same time.
So by compiling a list of all the ARCHERS serving in one military
unit, you can create a circumstantial case that some of the ARCHERS came
from the same place and might be related.
This is a complete transcription of veterans named ARCHER including those
who were descendants of Patrick Archer of Greene Co., PA taken from
microfilmed index card on National Archives Film T-288. The date
information is the date of the application for pension. The "where"
is the
state where the applicant lived when making application. The
"Service" unit designations follow this order, usually: Company (Troop-Cavalry) letter,
Regiment number. |
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Archer's in the military Indexed |
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