In a message dated 5/13/03 9:02:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time, OLD-FREDERICK-CO-VA-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: To answer the request re "should I get the pension file" for my Civil War Ancestor? Yes, you should and then you get the military file and any other files you can in the process. One of my mother's great uncles was in the Civil War. He was supposed to have been a prisoner at Andersonville. He also had a strange middle name which was only initials and no one seemed to know what the two initials stood for. Okay, I ordered his pension file. He wasn't at Andersonville but he was a prisoner of war in a camp in Tennessee. He was at the Battle of Vicksburg in an Illinois Regiment. The pension file gave me a lot of information. However, I also ordered the military file. That one did tell me some things I hadn't found on the pension file, but it gave me a wonderful gift. It gave me his full name. With that information, I was able to find where the family had lived in Kentucky. I had been looking for them for seven years. Their name was so common that it appeared in almost every single county in Kentucky and I had long since given up hope of ever finding them or where they came from in Virginia. With the information I had, I not only found the county in Kentucky, found the marriage of my second great-grandparents, and the exact county where her (my 2nd great grandmother's mother was born in Virginia and later, the exact county where her father was born in Maryland.) A few years later, with more information, I found where my 2nd greatfather was born in Virginia and was able to find his parents and grandparents. All of this because of a clue on a military file. Yes, you should order both. Annie > Tue, 13 May 2003 19:30:48 -0400 > From: "Christopher Robinson" <pangeaao@hotmail.com> > To: OLD-FREDERICK-CO-VA-L@rootsweb.com > Message-ID: <Law8-F41NhskstDAFQS00016446@hotmail.com> > Subject: [OLD-FREDERICK-CO-VA] RE: National Archives Records > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed > > Listers, > > I recently received Forms 85 and 86 to request Military and Pension records > from the National Archives. Also, some form of land record associated with > the military records. I was very excited to identify my gg-father's Civil > War regiment, but am a little discouraged by the price of ordering this > info. I would like to accumulate as much info as available, but I am not > sure what info is in these records. Is anyone familiar with these > documents > and the ordering process. Should I order both the Pension and Military > records, or is this info redundant? What kind of info is in these Civil > War > records? Do I need to order the complete pension file at abt. $37 or is > the > general pension info sufficient at abt. $18? Also, what are these land > records? > > Thanks, > Christopher L. Robinson > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail > > > >