You are indeed correct. A Revolutionary Soldier had to live to a pretty ripe old age to get a pension and hopefully he retained his discharge paper. So many did not or else the paper was destroyed in a home fire and hence they lacked proof of service if no one was still alive could testify for them that they did serve. The widow usually was much younger than her husband and marriage records simply are non-existent in many states because they were not required. If they were lucky they had their family bible record and many of these were used to verify marriages and that is why we do not have them for our documentation. They would tear the pages from the bible and send them along with their application and then disappear. I do not know how many of these were recovered with applications and are now in DAR and SAR archives. Tree Mother ----- Original Message ----- From: MJK <lender@netrox.net> To: <AMERICAN-REVOLUTION-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 12:57 PM Subject: [A-REV] REJECTED PENSIONS > One of my ancestor's widow applied for a pension and was denied...even > though her brother ,a pensioner, testified regarding her husband's > service.........a shame, since her husband did indeed serve in PA and > VA...... > now available in this day and age, his records are in the PA archives and I > have a certificate of service from PA for him............I wonder how many > failed to get a pension because of this?? It was a wonder that anyone was > still alive to even offer any proof! > > > ==== AMERICAN-REVOLUTION Mailing List ==== > > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 >