Over the past several years I pulled close to 300 pension files trying to find some lost relatives and what I found was the following. 1. In a lot of the files was a file folder of up to about 20 pages of vital information that they would use to send to people asking for files and then the other papers were loose in the envelope that all are stored in. 2. I always looked through the whole file as I was there and it would have been crazy not to see what might be missing. In almost all cases what was missing was mostly medical records. Sometimes it might be old envelopes, etc, but I don't remember finding much. 3. The largest files I found which usually took up two of their large envelopes were just pages and pages of surgeons reports on the health of the applicant. Each time he applied for an increase in pension he had to have another surgeon's report. If he lived a long time after the initial approval of his pension the files grew quite large. 4. The other thing that might make a file huge was letters from people who knew him either telling about his health before the war or about his health after the war or both. Sometimes these were relatives and that was what I was hoping for, but so many times it was people they were in the service with or neighbors. Sometimes that was a clue, but only once for me - but you never know and if I get back there I will continue my quest. I am not sure you would find anything else. Like the other responder I feel that is a lot of money to maybe find something out. Guess it depends on how much money you have to spare. I believe there are people in the DC area who will go and pull a file for you and they might be cheaper. But again they don't know the people they are looking at and perhaps would miss a clue. I would offer to pull it for you, but my trips to DC have temporarily (I hope) stopped. My husband was going on business 4 times a year and I always went with him. I know how frustrating it is to wonder if something is missing when you have a big brick wall and I probably would be one who if the wall was absolutely driving me nuts I would probably pay for the whole thing, but be advised you may have a lot of reading about all your ancestors aches and pains - usually they were related to intestinal problems. Everyone seemed to have horrible piles - I can't remember how to spell the word we use today and not near a dictionary to look it up. Good luck. Jerilyn **************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards. Go to AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)