Dear Genealogist: On Tuesday, May 20, 2008 the Mount Vernon Genealogical Society (MVGS) will meet in room 112 of the Hollin Hall Senior Center in Alexandria, Virginia. The meeting will start at 1:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The meeting will feature a presentation entitled "Anatomy of a Union Soldier's Civil War Pension File." The program will be presented by Claire Prechtel-Kluskens. The U.S. Government only paid pensions to Federal troops. Individuals who fought for the South received a pension from the state in which they resided after the Civil War. However, the National Archives does have a number of records regarding soldiers who fought for the South. These include the compiled military service records, Casualty records, information on individuals who died in Federal prisions and a considerable amount of documents on appointments of military personnel. This lecture will show the types of documents found in typical Civil War pension files and discuss their usefulness in genealogical research. The National Archives has over two million pension files relating to Union Civil War soldiers and sailors--and their widows and minor children. While each file is unique, they all share common elements. Anatomy of Civil War Pension Files will show and discuss the types of records and information found in these files. What if you don't have an ancestor that fought in the war or who never applied for a pension? Researchers may still find useful information in the pension files of the ancestor's siblings, uncles, cousins, friends, neighbors, employers, co-workers, or comrades-in-arms. Claire Kluskens has been an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, since 1992, and has been a genealogical researcher since 1976. At NARA she is a genealogical microfilm projects archivist specializing in census, immigration, and other records. She lectures and writes frequently on many family history research topics. The Hollin Hall Senior Center is located 4 miles south of Alexandria just off Fort Hunt Road at 1500 Shenandoah Road in Alexandria, Virginia. Harold McClendon Mount Vernon Genealogical Society Publicity Chairman