This is not an endorsement and is forwarded for your information. The following is a review from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2001 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. It might be cheaper to buy the CD than to obtain the records from the National Archives but you need to know EXACTLY which CD you need. - Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files Heritage Quest has just released a new set of CD-ROM disks with a long name: "Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrants." In fact, this huge set of 898 CD-ROM disks contains images of the original applications. I didn't have time to test all of the 898 CD-ROM disks, but I did spend some time this week with one of the disks. The CD-ROM disks offers enhanced digital images of the National Archives M-805 microfilm series in an easy-to-use CD-ROM format. Each CD is copied from the microfilm and assigned a number to correspond with the microfilm's National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) identification number. I used disk M805-293, which conveniently has all Revolutionary pension applications for men named Eastman as well as other names that are close to Eastman when arranged alphabetically. Some years ago I examined the same records on microfilm. I inserted the CD-ROM into my PC, loaded the software, and dove in without reading any instruction. I was soon able to find ancestors in the index and then see the original pension application records. These are not transcribed records; they are images of the original handwritten records. Most applications contain 6 or more pages on each individual. Quoting from Heritage Quest's description: The records contain both genealogical and historical information. A veteran's pension application normally gives his former rank, unit, and period of service, age or date of birth, his residence, and sometimes his birthplace. Property schedules often give names and ages of a veteran's wife and children. The application of a widow seeking a pension or a bounty land warrant may give her age, residence, maiden name, date and place of her marriage, and date and place of death of her husband. Application papers submitted by children and other heirs or dependents seeking pensions or bounty land warrants generally contain information about their ages and residences. Applicants often submitted the family-record pages from family Bibles and other documents to substantiate their claims. These Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files contain genealogical records from an estimated 80,000 individuals who served in the American military, navy, and marines, both officers and enlisted men, in the Revolutionary War. Most of the records were dated between 1800 and 1900. I found the navigation of the Heritage Quest software to be a bit confusing at first. However, within a few minutes I was able to figure out the indexing software and then I was able to navigate easily. There is no manual with the CD-ROM, but there is a built- in Help file. Once I had used the CD-ROM disk for a while, I found that I could navigate through all the images and then enhance, magnify, zoom, copy, save and print any of the original source documents that I wished. Printing one of the documents on the CD-ROM produced a better image than most of the photocopies of the microfilm images that I have made in past years. Also, I was able to enhance some of the images within the Heritage Quest software. I was able to adjust the brightness, contrast and gamma. However, for more advanced image enhancement, I simply saved the image to my hard drive as a .TIF file and then used a more sophisticated image-editing program. I could then import the image into a word processing document or into many modern genealogy programs. You can use the image of the Revolutionary War pension application in the same manner as any other scanned image. The handwriting on these records varies a lot. Some of the records are in beautiful penmanship while other applications appear to be filled out by paintbrush. By zooming in on individual letters and occasionally enhancing the images in a sophisticated graphics editor, I was able to decode words on a letter-by-letter basis, something I could not have easily done had I seen the same images on microfilm. In short, I found the CD-ROM images to be better than the microfilmed images of the same records. Heritage Quest's new "Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrants" CD-ROM disks require Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000, a 100 MHz Pentium or faster CPU, at least 16 megabytes of RAM memory, a 4- speed or faster CD-ROM and 88 megabytes free hard drive space. These new digital CD's are offered with a special "Buy 3 Get 1 Free" offer through September 30th. The retail price is $19.95 although members of the Heritage Quest Research Club pay $14.95. Those prices do not include postage or any possible taxes. Earlier I wrote that the "Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files" CD-ROM disks are new. In fact, they are so new that I could not find them listed on Heritage Quest's Web site. I suspect this will change within a very few days. I'd suggest that you frequently check http://www.HeritageQuest.com. Cheryl Rothwell LoganCty@mindspring.com http://www.rootsweb.com/~illogan/loindex.htm Central Illinois Regional Coordinator, ILGenWeb --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.268 / Virus Database: 140 - Release Date: 8/7/01