As a followup to my messages concerning FHC military records, I'm taking the liberty of re-posting this to this list, as many new readers have joined us in the past few months. This was originally posted in January 2000. ================================= SOURCE: "Revolutionary War Genealogy," by George K. Schweitzer, Ph.D., Sc.D., privately published, Knoxville, TN, 1987. "The American Revolution generated a tremendous volume of records. Fortunately a sizeable portion of them contain detailed genealogical information on more than 200,000 military participants who fought for American independence. In addition, the original records and records derived from them refer to wives and several million descendants of these veterans. "During the war, records included enlistment papers, muster rolls, pay rolls, attendance lists, regimental rosters, descriptive lists (detailed descriptions and vital data on participants), account books (on clothing, weapons, and rations issued), oaths of allegiance, and discharge papers. The records contain items such as name, rank, date, organization, enlistment date, term of service, promotions, reasons for absence (illness, wounded, death, furlough, discharged), birth place and date, place of civilian residence, civilian occupation, height, age, color of eyes and hair, and sometimes a signature. Rarely will all of these be available for a given soldier, sailor, or marine, but many will usually be. "In addition to the above, there were regimental orderly books (records of the orders given regiments by superior officers), communications between commanding officers (campaign plans, orders to lower officers, battle reports, lists of wounded and killed), lists of deserters, lists of prisoners, list of enlistment expirations, petitions to their superior officers (for appointments, promotions, resignations), and records of the cities, counties, state legislatures, and the Continental Congress. Quite a number of the participants kept diaries or journals and wrote letters which have survived. Very recently the existence of extensive British records on the rebelling colonists (especially prisoners) have begun to be available. "After the war, even more records were generated. Many of the participants in the conflict had been promised land (called bounty land) for their service, many had been awarded bonus pay, and many were owed back pay. A large number of civilians were also owed money for service or supplies they provided to the military forces. The civilians and the veterans or their heirs filed claims for these debts with the state or national legislatures, the claims were acted upon, and payment records were kept. In addition, following the end of the war, pensions were awarded to veterans, their wives, and/or their heirs. These actions generated pension applications to the states and the federal government, decisions on the applications, pension payments, pension alterations as the laws were changed, and pension terminations. Pension applications can be of extreme value genealogically since they often provide the rank, state, military unit, dates of enlistment and discharge, birth date and place, amount of pension, places of residence to which the pension was sent, soldier's proof of military service, names of his officers, battle descriptions, property owned, date of death, widow's birth date and place, marriage date, names and birth dates of children, death date and place of widow, and affidavits of acquaintances, officials, and fellow soldiers. Applicants often went into considerable detail regarding their war experiences as they attempted to give proof of their service. Again, large volumes of records were involved. Such was also the case with bounty land applications. As you can imagine, some veterans made speeches, wrote articles, or even composed books describing their wartime adventures. A fair number of these are also available and often contain useful information on many persons who were in the same organization as the writer. "Most of the original records mentioned above are to be found in the National Archives in Washington, DC, in the State Archives of the original thirteen states, in university and private archives in those states, in a few archives in other states, in city and county records, and in French archives. The major ones of these records will be discussed in this chapter, and you will be told exactly how to find those relating to your Revolutionary War ancestor. THE INITIAL APPROACH "The very first thing you need to do is to write to the National Archives and ask them for three copies of Form NATF-80. This form will permit you to tap many of the vast record resources of the large collection there in Washington, DC. You should interrupt your reading and do this right now because the Archives is often slow in responding due to its heavy work load. The address is: Reference Service Branch (NNIR), National Archives, Washington DC 20408. ======================================================= Mr. Schweitzer continues for many pages, but it all starts with the Form NATF-80. Form NATF-80 can also be requested online at the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) web site: http://www.nara.gov/publications/how.html So, what are you waiting for? :-) Chris ==== BROOKS-NE Mailing List ==== To UNSUBSCRIBE from "digest mode,", send an email to [email protected] with just the word UNSUBCRIBE in the message body.