Attempting to View the 1940 Census

Like everyone else, I was looking forward to browsing the newly-released 1940 US census today.  

Because the census is not yet indexed, the only way to find your family now is by finding the census enumeration  district (ED) and then browsing all the pages of the ED.  To find the enumeration district (ED), you must first know the address - the complete address - not just the street.  At least that is the case for my family who resided in a big city.

I went to Steve Morse's excellent ED finder and followed the directions by filling in my great-grandparent's exact address.  With the ED finder, I was able to zoom in to the exact city block by adding cross streets.  It was really very simple.  However, when I clicked on the ED, I received an error message at the NARA site.  No surprise that the National Archives site is overwhelmed.  Hours later, it is still telling me that it is "preparing image".  I can see there are 34 pages of this ED for me to browse if I only I could get the images to load.  No word when this issue will be fixed.

So I went to  Ancestry.com  who is also offering the 1940 census for free.  Ancestry is in the process of uploading all of the census records and indexing them,  They have a number of states done, but not the states where my family lived.  Ancestry does have a sign-up and they let you know when the state you are interested in is completed.  The 1940 census will be free at Ancestry and  I had no problem loading the available census here. 

While at the Ancestry site, I noticed that they have their  1940 Era Records for FREE  through April 10.  This includes, surprisingly, the 1930 census, and many city directories that can help find the exact address needed to find the ED to enable browsing of the census. So, I think I will spend my time collecting exact addresses from the free 1940 Era Records at Ancestry.com until I can actually view the census images.

Ashley Judd’s Civil War Ancestor–WDYTYA

Ashley Judd’s appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? Friday, April 8, the last episode of Season 2.

Part of the episode focused on her Civil War ancestor, Elijah Hensley, her great-great-grandfather. Elijah Hensley was just 15 when he joined 39th Kentucky Infantry, Company I, a Union regiment.

Ashley Judd scrolled through microfilm at the Kentucky State Archives and found his muster roll pages.  Interestingly enough, Muster Rolls  are available online at Ancestry.com and are free this week (until April 14.)

Here is Elijah Hensley’s muster roll.  It is several pages long and gives his physical description (5’ 7”, grey eyes, light hair, and fair complexion) , his capture by rebels, his leg amputation on 10/2/1864, his hospital stay, his recovery at home, and his discharge due to disability.

Ashley had tears in her eyes thinking of her ancestor as a 15 year old kid on the battlefield having his leg amputated without anesthesia and without sanitation. I had tears as well thinking of any 15 year old going though that horror especially after the amputation tools were shown.

Ashley said she wanted not just the records but also the stories behind them, and talked to Dr. Brian McKnight, a Civil War historian. After her talk with him, he sent her an envelope that contained a photo of Elijah Hensley along with a transcription of a testimonial describing him as doing Master's work in the Methodist church as well as being a farmer in Inez, Kentucky. 

The photo and testimonial were part of Elijah’s Civil War pension file available for Union soldiers at the National Archives.  Civil War pension records are well worth sending for as it is the pension files that have a lot of the stories behind the records.

If you want to find your own Civil War story, Ancestry.com has made its records free this week only for the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.

Not sure how if you have a Civil War ancestor? Download this guide to find your Civil War ancestor or follow this guide to determine if your ancestor was in the Civil War

Order your ancestor’s Civil War pension file online from the National Archives (NARA) and include the name, state, regiment, and especially the application number and the certificate number from the Civil War Pension Index Card, as NARA will not do research.

Civil War Pension Files at NARA

Vanessa Williams’ journey to find her ancestors on the TV show Who Do You Think You Are?  took her to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. to see the Civil War pension file of her great-great-grandfather where in addition to the written pension records, she found a tintype of her great-great-grandfather.

But did you know that you don’t have to travel to Washington, D.C. to see your ancestor’s Civil War pension file?  You can order a copy of your ancestor’s complete pension application file from the National Archives and have it mailed to you.

Before you order a Civil War pension or military file from NARA (the National Archives), you need to do some research on your soldier. NARA says:

"NARA cannot do substantive research for you. Reading several files to see if any of the match meager identification is substantive research. If you request a specific file, we can search for that file and provide you with copies. Our success is based entirely on the work that you do before you send the request to us. If there are too many soldiers in a unit with the same name, we will return the request to you for additional information. Using the Civil War Pension Index is one way to ensure that the file you want is the file that you get."

First, you must determine if you have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War.  Like any genealogy project, to find out if you have a Civil War ancestor, start with what you know and take your research back generation by generation. Start your FREE family tree online to enter what you already know about yourself, your parents, your grandparents, and as far back as you know.  Find your family in the 1930 census and continue to trace your family back through the earlier census. 

There are two US Census years that show if a family member was a Civil War veteran:

• 1910 Census lists if a person was a veteran and a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy.  If your ancestor was a Confederate soldier, order his pension file from the state repository.
• 1890 Special Veterans’ Census lists the veteran's name or widow's name, rank, year of enlistment, and year of discharge.

Union Soldiers
If you have found you have an ancestor who fought as a Union soldier in the Civil War, you can check the Civil War Pension Index to see if he filed an application for a pension.  Not every Civil War soldier did.   But all soldiers should have a service file.  Check the:

• Civil War Pension Index
  The index from Ancestry.com is used to order Civil War Pension records from NARA.  The index also can provide clues such as wife’s name, to help narrow down the correct soldier.  It also lists the regiment which you can verify against the 1890 Special Veterans’ Census
• Civil War Pension Index
  The index from Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) often includes soldier's death date and place.  This can also help narrow down the correct soldier;i.e. if the index file states that the soldier died in 1902 but the soldier you are looking for was alive and listed in the 1910 census, you know you have the wrong soldier.

Union soldier pensions are ordered from National Archives. In addition to the pension index file, Ancestry.com has a huge database of Civil War soldiers .

If you want the pension file for a Union soldier ancestor, make a copy of the Civil War Pension Index card to send with your request to NARA.  NARA wants as much info as possible so they can pull the correct file to copy.

Order the Civil War pension file online from the National Archives (NARA) and include the name, state, regiment, and especially the application number and the certificate number from the index card. Click on Order Reproductions, then click Military Service and Pension Records, then Federal Military Pension Application - Civil War and Later Complete File (NATF 85D).  There is a fee which includes up to 100 copied pages.  The amount of genealogy information generally included in a pension file is pretty amazing – an  incredible amount of genealogy info. They typically have birth dates, addresses of next of kin, medical information, proof of marriage, proof of children's births, a summary of military service, neighbor interviews, and sometimes death certificates.  I personally have never found a tintype or a photo.

If you live anywhere near D.C., take the time for a visit the National Archives to see the files in person.  It’s a special experience.

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) has started to digitize the actual pension files, not just the index cards.  It is a monumental task, and they have completed about 3% of the Civil War Widows' Pensions files.  It is worth it to check to see if your ancestor is included in the completed online files.

Confederate Soldiers
Confederate soldiers pensions are ordered from the state repository. They are held in the state where the soldier lived at the time of the pension, not the state where he served.

Some of the Confederate states pension records are online:

• Alabama Confederate Pension and Service Records, 1862-1947
• Arkansas Confederate Pension Records, 1891-1935
• Florida Confederate Pension Applications
• Georgia Confederate Pension Application Supplements, 1879-1960
• Georgia Pension Application Records
• Missouri Provost Marshal Database
• Oklahoma Confederate Pension Records Index
• South Carolina Confederate Veterans 1909 - 1973
• Tennessee Confederate Pension Applications Index
• Tennessee Confederate Soldiers and Widows Pension Applications Index
• Tennessee Confederate Soldiers Home Applications Index
• Texas Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958
• Texas Confederate Pension Applications, 1899-1975
  
• Virginia Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958 (Choose VA in the drop down box)


• Virginia Confederate Pension Rolls (Veterans and Widows) Database

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) has placed online digitized copies of the Compiled Service Records for the Confederate State soldiers. When you look at these records, don’t stop at the first image.  Compiled Service records sometimes are many pages long.  Union and Confederate Soldiers Ancestry.com has a large database of  Civil War Records, both Union and Confederate.  It has records of  more than 6 million names of servicemen — Union and Confederate — who fought in the U.S. Civil War plus POW records. Ancestry.com  is a subscription website, but you can use the 2 week Free Trial for quick access to find your family in the different census years and Civil War Pension index so that you can then order Pension file from NARA. Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) also has a Free Trial for quick access to the Civil War Pension index and Confederate Compiled Service Records

Vietnam Virtual Wall

The Virtual Vietnam Wall
Visiting the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D. C. with its 58,256 names carved into black granite is a powerful and emotional experience. The sheer size of the Wall is a sobering reminder of how many young people paid the ultimate sacrifice during this war.

Every time I have been to the Wall, I realize it is not just the Wall by itself but seeing the people who interact with the Wall that makes the visit so poignant. Seeing people placing flowers against the Wall under their loved one's name, or seeing people rubbing a carved name from the Wall onto paper to take home, or seeing people standing in silence as they touch a name on the Wall reminds me of the suffering of the loved ones left behind.

I didn't think it would be possible for the Virtual Wall to have the same emotional impact as as visit to the Granite Wall in D.C. But I was wrong.

The Virtual Vietnam Wall at Footnote.com turns the 58,256 names engraved onto the Wall into real people with real stories and loved ones they left behind. Just like at the Granite Wall, it is the interaction with people that makes the Virtual Wall poignant. Short stories of their lives written by those who loved them, photographs of forever-young faces, and loving tributes make the visit to the Virtual Wall very poignant. Many of the tributes hold a lot of emotion in a very few words: "The dad I never knew", or "He saved my life", or "I still miss you, brother".

Peter Krogh, a National Geographic photographer, took more than 1,500 photographs of the Wall and stitched them together to create one digital replica of the memorial. Footnote made each name link to the person's personnel records and casualty reports supplied by the National Archives. To view the whole Wall, slide from one side to the other to see the sheer magnitude of the 140 panels that make the Vietnam Wall.

Searching is easy. Choose any of of 24 categories - you don't need to supply a name. Search for a soldier, or for all soldiers who died in one town, or for those who died in a certain year, or any combination of the 24 filters.

Some of the Tributes
Lewis Albanese
Thomas Joseph Blanchard
Gerald Alan Cahela
Thomas Carlisle
Harry Cramer
Steven Dean Gundolf
Norman Walter Heck Jr
George Henry Jourdenais
Roger Edward Jozwiak
Darwin Lee Judge
Fredrick Ellis Larsen
Chester Lee
William Thomas Perkins Jr
Leroy James Westra
David Clark Williams
Delvin Wilson

National Archives and Footnote.com Announce 'The Wall'

National Archives and Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) Hold Press Conference to Announce 'The Wall'
Interactive online Vietnam War Memorial makes war records more widely available .

WHAT: A press conference to unveil a new interactive online Vietnam War Memorial, featuring the largest photo of the Wall on the Web.

WHO: Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein, Russell Wilding, CEO, Footnote.com James Hasting, Director of Access Programs, National Archives

WHEN: 10 A.M., Wednesday, March 26, 2008

WHERE: Archivist's Reception Room National Archives 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. Press should use Pennsylvania Avenue entrance.

BACKGROUND: Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) , in partnership with the National Archives, has extracted information from National Archives electronic records of each Vietnam casualty and linked it to each name on the Wall. The casualty records are from the Combat Area Casualties Current File from the records of the Secretary of Defense and from Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died during the Vietnam War, from records that were donated to the National Archives by Richard Coffelt, Richard Arnold, and David Argabright. In addition to the casualty records for these men and women, Footnote.com will be scanning National Archives photos and casualty reports from the Vietnam War.

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) has incorporated social tools into this project, enabling visitors to search the Wall for names of people they knew and pay tribute by adding photos, comments and stories of those who lost their lives during the Vietnam War.

/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- March 20/

I have visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D. C. many times and still find visiting the memorial with its 58,249 names carved into black granite to be a powerful and emotional experience. The sheer size of the Wall certainly brings home the magnitude of how many paid the ultimate sacrifice during this war. Every time I have visited, I have seen people placing flowers against the Wall under their loved one's name; I have seen people rubbing a carved name from the wall onto paper to take home; I have seen people standing in silence touching a name on the wall; I have seen Vietnam vets revisiting their dead comrades; and I have seen people of all ages paying homage to the sacrifice of these men and women.

I hope the electronic Wall at Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) where we can pay electronic tribute by adding photos, comments and stories of those who lost their lives during the Vietnam War will bring the same powerful and emotional experience to those who cannot visit the Wall in person.

The Vietnam Wall at Footnote.com will be free for all.

Civil War Pension Index

I plan to order several Civil War pensions from NARA before the price goes up on October 1. Usually before I order a pension file, I first look up the soldier in the Ancestry.com Civil War Pension Index to get his pension certificate & application number to send to NARA to make sure they will find the correct pension file.

I was looking in the Ancestry Pension Index for a soldier who was in the Pennsylvania Civil War Volunteers, but there were two soldiers with this same name from PA in the index and I wasn't sure which was the one I wanted because there wasn't enough identifying information. I had pretty much decided to order both pensions.

Then I remembered that Footnote.com also has a Civil War Pension Index which is from a different NARA microfilm than Ancestry's Pension Civil War Index. I had originally thought that the difference between the 2 indexes is that they had the soldiers in a different order. But when I took a closer look, I found something that made a huge difference for me to be able to determine which was my correct soldier.


General Index to Pension Files - 1861-1934.
Microfilm T288. 544 rolls. Alphabetical Soldier Index. This is the Civil War pension file available at Ancestry.com.


Organization Index to Pension Files of Veterans Who Served Between 1861 and 1900 Microfilm T289. 765 rolls. Indexed by state, then by service (infantry, cavalry, artillery), then by regiment, and then alphabetically by veteran's surname. The information is similar to the information contained on the General Index to Pension Files T288 at Ancestry with one major difference. At Footnote's index, if the soldier died after the war, the card includes the soldier's death date and where he died at the bottom of the card.


Here is the death date from the Footnote Civil War Pension Index for one of the 2 soldiers with the same name that I was trying to decide between:


The death date gave me the info I needed to be able to order the correct pension file. The soldier I wanted had been enumerated on the 1900 US census so I knew the soldier who had died on July 26, 1891 was NOT the soldier I wanted.

Even if you have no intention of ordering the pension file from NARA, it is good to know that the Footnote.com Civil War index is another place to check for death dates and in some cases, place of death.

You can search the Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) site for free and see a thumbnail of the actual record. If you find something you want to investigate further, you can Start Your Free Trial with Footnote.com .

Ordering Pension Records from NARA Before the Price Increase

If you have been thinking about ordering US pension & military records from the National Archives, now is the time to do it. Prices will double on October 1, 2007.

Civil War Pension Files

Starting Oct. 1, NARA will charge $75 for a Civil War pension file of up to 100 pages, with for $.65 per additional page (for longer files, staff will contact you with a price quote before filling the order). NARA says the average pension ordered is 106 pages.

If you order today, a Civil War pension file is $37. Civil War pension files are a wonderful genealogy resource and well worth sending for. The ones I have received were a goldmine of information.

You can order pension records online or request order forms. Instructions for ordering Pension Files plus details about what you can expect to receive in these files is available at How to Order Civil War Pension Files


Revolutionary War Pension Files

NARA will charge $50 for pre-Civil War pension files regardless of page count, and $.75 per page to copy other records.

If you are interesting in Revolutionary War pension files, I think it makes more sense to buy a subscription to Footnote.com instead of ordering records from NARA at their new price. Footnote has a partnership with the National Archives to digitize the full Revoultionary pension files and other NARA records. The Footnote records can be downloaded onto your computer, saved and printed.

You also have the advantage of browsing Footnote.com for your ancestor's pension file to make sure you get the right person. I can't be the only person who has sent to NARA and gotten back a file for the wrong person.

At this writing, a monthly subscription to Footnote.com is $7.95 and an annual subscription $59.95, so it is a cheaper alternative than ordering the Revolutionary records from NARA at the new price. See Footnote subscriptions Footnote is adding 2 million records per month, so you have the added benefit of being able to find other records during your subscription time.

In addition to the Revolutionary War pension file of my 5th great-grand uncle, I found some very interesting and unexpected family records at Footnote.


Spanish-American War Pension Files

Some, but not all , of the Spanish-American War (1898) pension files are held at NARA. Others are at the Veteran's Administration. The NARA price increase includes the Spanish-American War pension files held at NARA.

There is more information about ordering Spanish-American War pension files and how to determine which repository is holding your soldier's files at Ordering Spanish American Pension Records



I've got a few Civil War & Spanish American War pension files I have been procrastinating sending for. This price increase has given me the needed push to do it sooner rather than later.

Footnote.com

Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com) launched a new website in January 2007 in partnership with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Footnote has already posted close to 9 million NARA documents and is adding 2 million documents per month! And these original documents are found no where else on the web.

Footnote.com is the only Web site wholly devoted to making digital images of American historical documents, said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Archives.

The National Archives holds 9 billion pages of documents and it has no money to turn them into digital images, so it readily agreed to a partnership with footenote.com, she said.

Footnote has a very cool interface with an easy-to-follow browse page. It is quite an impressive site to see.

The name Footnote is very descriptive as this site encourages users to add "footnotes" or annotations to documents or pictures on the site.

Footnote also encourages members to add stories, the footnotes to history. You do not need to be a paid member to add or search the stories. Some of the stories I was saw yesterday were high school yearbooks complete with photos and student names, Surname Research Groups, Native American Heroes, & Black Spies of the Civil War. It is quite a diverse group of stories and growing every day. All free and searchable.

Some of the Footnote NARA Record Collections so far are:

• Naturalization Records 1792-1966 - Petitions and Declarations for NY, PA, MA
• Pennsylvania Archives 1625-1880 (a FREE database)
• Civil War Pensions Index 1865-1899
• Mathew B. Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs
• Confederate Soldiers AL, TX, VA
• Southern Claims Commission
• Revolutionary War Rolls
• Papers of the Continental Congress 1774-1789
• Papers of the Constitutional Convention 1787
• Federal Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922
• City Directories for New England States

You can search and find a thumbnail of the original document and a snippet of what it contains. And if you are interested to see the complete record, Start Your Free Trial with Footnote.com

NARA proposes a huge increase for Civil War pension files

The National Archives are proposing increasing the Full pension file more than 75 years old (Civil War period) - NATF Form 85 from $37 to 125.00.

You can make comments until April 27, 2007.

ADDRESSES: NARA invites interested persons to submit comments on this proposed rule. Comments may be submitted by any of the following methods:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov/.
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

Fax: Submit comments by facsimile transmission to 301-837-0319.

Mail: Send comments to Regulations Comments Desk (NPOL), Room 4100, Policy and Planning Staff, National Archives and Records Administration, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20740-6001.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jennifer Davis Heaps at 301-837-1850 or fax at 301-837-0319. Requests for copies of the proposed information collection and supporting statement should be directed to Tamee Fechhelm at 301-837-1694 or fax at 301-837-3213.

It is probably futile to complain about such a large increase. So if you have been thinking about ordering a Civil War pension file from the National Archives, now is the time to do it

Order Civil War Pension & Service Records