I was in my local library last week looking for a book called House Histories A Guide to Tracing the Genealogy of Your Home, recommended to me by Marian Pierre-Louis of Fieldstone Historic Research. Marian researches house histories as part of her business so we chatted about that for a bit.
At the library after finding this book I ran past the genealogy section which is sadly, very small. I did find a book I had not seen before, or just didn’t “need” before called Tracing Your Civil War Ancestors by Bertram Hawthorne Groene. It is a thin book with small print and I read almost half of it last night. What a fantastic book for anyone researching their Civil War ancestors!
As I read I should have been taking notes but decided after I read through it once, I’ll go through it again and take notes and see what I missed. There is so much great information!
Bertram outlines where the records are, what they contain, how to get them and a few tips about requesting them. He also talks about artifacts he has located and how he researched the people behind them if a name was engraved on the artifact. Very interesting.
Take a look at this book if you are researching your Civil War ancestor. You will not be disappointed!
I found the book and loved it. If you have Civil War ancesters, I found that both the service records and the pension records are very valuable. You can order them directly from NARA or you can hire a professional genealogist in the NARA area and have them copy them for you. I found I paid less than 1/2 the cost than I would have paid through NARA when I hired a professional genealogist. See my post at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets for more details.
Regards, Jim
Thanks for your comment Jim! I agree the pension files and service records are incredible resources.