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Genealogy Corner… War Of 1812

Issue 46.15

FamilySearch.org has a new campaign that has taken lists of people who served in the War of 1812 and identified their living descendants in the Family Tree. Their descendants will receive an email inviting them to find their ancestors who served in the War of 1812 and view their pension files on FamilySearch and Fold3 which is owned by Ancestry.com.

The War of 1812 Pension Files are rich with information about the soldiers who served. The files often include a soldier’s full name, age, place of residence, service data and dates, the organization he served in, his rank, the acres granted for bounty land, the soldier’s death date and place, his widow’s name and maiden name, marriage date and place, widow’s death date and place, and also the names of his previous wives, if any. You can often find marriage records, death records, obituaries, family Bible pages, and other valuable documents within the pension files. In many cases, there is enough information in the pension file to identify the veteran or his wife in Family Tree. Descendants will be able to add missing details in Family Tree about the soldier, his wife, and extended family members based upon the details provided in the pension file. The War of 1812 pension files were never microfilmed, so access to these records prior to today was very limited. The Federation of Genealogical Societies, in partnership with the National Archives Records Administration, Ancestry.com, Fold3.com, FamilySearch, and others, are working together on this community project to digitize the 7.2 million pages of record within the pension files for the War of 1812.

You can find them directly by going to https://www.fold3.com/title_761/war_of_1812_pension_files/ and it is a free database right now. Search the Family Tree at https://familysearch.org/tree/ a database and Family Tree, which is always free to use.

For more information, contact Shanna Jones at shannasjones@msn.com

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