-----Original Message----- >From: Ruy Cardoso <[email protected]> >Incidentally, I note that the pension info at HQ can >be quite limited in individual cases. As always, Ruy is exactly right. There are different film collections. There is M804, which contains all the records in the applicant's file. There is also M805, which contains a much more limited group of documents in the file deemed to be of genealogical value, and to the best of my knowledge this is what HQ uses. (By the way, there are also Bounty Land Warrant files which are distinct from the pension files and can be very useful. Land was available, eventually, to heirs, and so the genealogical value is obvious.) I could explain further, but since I'd doubtless get it wrong, it would be better to do a Google or other search using these numbers and find sites that explain in detail. The differences in the files can be significant. The M805 file for my ancestor Moses Wright, A Cooke descendant, does include the basic genealogical information. The M804 file for Moses is four times as long, about 40 pages, and they are legal size pages and contain more per page than the file found at HQ. In the M804 file I discovered that there was a question as to whether Moses had been involved in a land fraud. The file contained many pages of affidavits testifying that many people knew Moses very well and did swear before a judge that Moses was far too simple-minded to have understood and participated in this fraud, let alone contrive it. Genealogy is not for the faint of heart.