The last NY GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY RECORD has an article on Revolutionary War Records Hidden in the Pension Files. The article reminded me that more and more people are relying on pension records on the Internet, such as at Heritage Quest, which is very handy but misleads one into thinking one has used the entire source. First of all the pension applications contain 80,000 separate files. When they were filmed by the Natl Government, two series of film were created. The microfilm series M805 is a selective series of only about 1/3 of all the documents. Staff took the ten most "significant" documents in large files and placed these in the front of each file. Only those were filmed. The idea was to give researchers something less unwieldy to use when looking for support for their patriotic organization applications. This is the series digitized by ProQuest for its CD and for the Internet Heritage Quest site. However, the entire series was filmed as M804, and this is the series you should use for serious research. Dr. Parry's 16-page article mentioned above gives numerous examples of what may be missed by using the short series. For instance, many veterans who never applied for pensions still appear in pension applications when they made affidavits testifying to a fellow soldier's service. Some of Parry's illustrations list men who appear neither in NEW YORK IN THE REVOLUTION (the standard listing of soldiers) nor in the Compiled Service Records (M881). Recently, I was corresponding with the Alden Project about my ancestor Nathaniel Holmes, who began service in MA but ended it in NY where he lived the rest of his life. I had an additional son for the man, not mentioned in the will that the Alden Project had collected. The son's name did not appear in the initial pension application but in a document created over ten years later when my careless ancestor, who had lost his proof of pension, had to reapply. That document did not make it into M805. These national records on film are available at all regional branches of the National Archives, at Family History Centers, and at major research libraries. Elizabeth W. Knowlton