John: I have had occasion to deal with VA hospitals. My GG grandfather was a veteran of the civil war and my GG Grandmother was in the VA Hospital (Veteran's Home) in Retsil, Washington. I contacted them and within a week I had all the papers and files on both of them. Pension, dependants affidavit, witness reports, etc. They were extremely helpful. I guess like anything else it all depends on who you are dealing with and what kind of a mood they are in. Retsil Home in Washington ranks right up near the top with me. Fred Jones ----- Original Message ----- From: John Clavin <jjc@bga.com> To: <NY-Military-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 5:01 PM Subject: Re: [NY-Mil] Re: More on obtaining records from WWI > At 10:42 AM 4/11/00 -0400, robmarth wrote: > >Hi Folks, > >I just want to thank everyone who has e-mailed info on NARA for WWI records. > >Leslie Albright died at the VA hospital in Batavia, NY in 1978. I sent them > >a letter (w/SASE) requesting any info on the family or anything else. This > >was back in 1998. I never received a reply. Has anyone gone this route and > >what were their dealings with Veterans hospitals? > > I have not dealt with VA hospitals, but did try to get information out of > the VA about a pension file. My great-grandfather had a Civil War pension > when he died in 1934. Most civil war pension files were transferred to the > National Archives about 1932 if I recall correctly. Since his file was > still active, it remained with the VA and is still in their possession per > a records storage agreement they have with the Archives. However, unlike > the Archives, their mind set is not focused on old records. They are too > busy providing services to the living. It took me quite a while to even get > someone there to acknowledge what I was talking about. After two or three > letters and about two years, I finally got a copy of the pension file. > > One approach you might try which may yield faster results is to request the > information under the Freedom of Information Act. However, because the > death was relatively recent, genealogically speaking, the privacy acts may > take precedence. I also would try directing the request to the VA Regional > Office for the area which contained the hospital (see http://www.va.gov/ ) > . They would have a better understanding of records retention and storage > issues. The hospitals almost certainly send the records off to be archived > after some number of years and probably don't know what you are talking about. > > John > > ********** John Clavin | jjc@bga.com | Austin, TX ********** > > >