Sharon, 39 days is fantastic. I am in the process of filling out forms 85 and 86 for my husband's grgrandfather. Did you give NARA a credit card number as requested on the form or wait until they notified you that they found the files and then sent a check? I am in a quandary as to how to proceed. Thank you. Betty

I recently received a Union pension record for a shirt-tail relative of mine. You have to give them a credit card number at the time you place your order. They charge to it only if they find a record of the relative you're seeking. In my case, I submitted the request in early March. Within about two weeks, I'd received a notice that they couldn't find a pension record, but I received no response to the military record. About the third week of June, I called NARA and managed to get hold of Tina Robinson. I gave her the information I had, along with the fact that they might have to be a little artistic in the search for this relative's last name, which was Ratigan. His death record in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, reads "Roddigan." You can imagine my surprise when, 90 minutes later, I get a call from her saying "We found it!" I was even more surprised to receive the entire pension record (102 pages of it) six days later by priority mail, and this included a weekend. I managed to share this record with some of the descendants of his family in Georgia. ----- Original Message ----- From: <TCHSGIRL58@aol.com> To: <CIVIL-WAR-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2003 6:38 AM Subject: [CIVIL-WAR] Pension Files for Union Soldiers > Sharon, > 39 days is fantastic. I am in the process of filling out forms 85 and 86 for > my husband's grgrandfather. Did you give NARA a credit card number as > requested on the form or wait until they notified you that they found the files and > then sent a check? I am in a quandary as to how to proceed. Thank you. > > Betty > > > ==== CIVIL-WAR Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from list mode, email CIVIL-WAR-L-REQUEST@rootsweb.com > and in the text area of the message, type only the word > unsubscribe > >

I was given the choice of giving them a credit card number which would be charged only when they found and sent my file. Electing to pay by check was going to delay and I am not a patient person. I didn't count the pages, but it was an impressive amount of information. It told me my soldier's wife's maiden name and gave enough other clues so that four hours of searching census data found her parents and siblings for me. As for the nearly religious refrain sung by genealogists "Document everything!" - this packet is the best "proof" of information I've ever seen anywhere. Only DNA could be better. I highly recommend sending for these pension files, when they are available. Sharon