How to Order Your Ancestor’s Civil War Pension File (Union Side)

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Order Your Ancestor’s Civil War Pension File to Learn Details about Their Service

We’ve talked about how to find out whether or not your ancestor fought in the Civil War. We’ve also talked about how to discover their military unit, and even how to find their card in a pension index. We’ve even talked a bit about what pensions are and what you might expect to find in them. By now, then, you should be armed and ready to order your ancestor’s Civil War pension file. (If you haven’t found your ancestor’s unit or pension card yet, you may want to go back and follow the tips outlined in our previous posts in this series).

Ordering your ancestor’s Civil War pension file is easy to do. You can order it online, by mail, or in person at the National Archives in Washington, DC. If you order online, the process will go faster than if you order by mail. For records this old, you do not need to prove that you are a relative of the person named in the pension file.Continue reading “How to Order Your Ancestor’s Civil War Pension File (Union Side)”

Researching Your Civil War Ancestor, Part IV: Understanding Civil War Pensions

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Clerks at the US Pension Office.

The next section of our series on researching your Civil War ancestor will focus on pension files: what they are, how to get them, why you want them, and what they will tell you. We’re going to be pretty thorough in this section, so buckle up. The rewards for investigating your ancestor’s pension file can be very great, as we have demonstrated in earlier posts.

We’ll start with Union pensions before covering Confederates (Yes, many Confederate soldiers received pensions, too!)Continue reading “Researching Your Civil War Ancestor, Part IV: Understanding Civil War Pensions”

Spooky Genealogy Stories: My Ancestors Were Ghostbusters

Haunted house: Halloween Genealogy
My great-great uncles lodged in haunted houses during the great depression. Their lives have given me some spooky genealogy stories to tell. (Photo by Harald Hoyer)

Two of my great, great uncles, Marion Oma Gano Tucker and Riley “Bud” Mayo, were ghostbusters in Texas and Oklahoma during the great depression.  According to stories passed down by the family, times were tough, so for work they traveled from town to town and asked locals if there were any haunted houses or buildings in the area. If there were, they offered to live in the house and investigate what was really going on. In exchange, the town gave them food. This provided them with room and board during difficult economic times. It also gave them a lot of good ghost stories to tell their relatives.Continue reading “Spooky Genealogy Stories: My Ancestors Were Ghostbusters”

Finding Your Luxembourgish Ancestors: Christening Records

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Luxembourg church records may be the key to your genealogy

My last post offered guidance in navigating Luxembourg Civil Birth records. These records are wonderful, and date back to 1796. If you want to trace your Luxembourgish ancestors further than that, fear not! Local church christening records may be able to help.Continue reading “Finding Your Luxembourgish Ancestors: Christening Records”

Finding Your Luxembourgish Ancestor: Civil Birth Records

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Luxembourg genealogy research recently became much easier, thanks to large numbers of records being made available online. The bulk of Luxembourg birth records come in two different types: civil registration records (zivilstandsregisters) and Catholic church records. Because of these records, my wife’s family has finally been able to trace their Luxembourgish-American ancestor, Mathias Groos, back several generations beyond his immigration to the United States. Continue reading to learn more about Luxembourg Civil Birth Registers.Continue reading “Finding Your Luxembourgish Ancestor: Civil Birth Records”

5 Ways to Get the Most for your Money out of Genealogy DNA Testing

Save money on genealogy dna analysis.

So you shelled out $60 – $200 dollars on a genealogical DNA test. You’ve looked at your DNA ethnicity pie chart. It gave you something interesting to bring up at the dinner table. But now what?

The number of things you can do with your DNA to help solve mysteries on your family tree are far too many to cover in just one short blog post. Thus, we have decided to put together a series of posts on getting the most for your money out of DNA tests. Let’s face it, they aren’t cheap. We’re here to help make that money count.Continue reading “5 Ways to Get the Most for your Money out of Genealogy DNA Testing”

Using Reddit in Your Genealogy Research: Getting Help Online

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Reddit has become a powerful place on the web for genealogists, though it remains unknown to many. If you are looking for help with your genealogy research, a brief translation of a record, or identification of someone in a photograph, Reddit may be the place to go for answers.

Reddit is organized into “subreddits,” or pages where users can post questions, photos, and links devoted to a particular topic. Here are a few of the most useful subreddits for genealogists:Continue reading “Using Reddit in Your Genealogy Research: Getting Help Online”

German Immigration: Charles Kolb of Württemberg

Featured image: Portrait of Charles Gottlieb Kolb, who immigrated to America in 1854.

My wife is a direct descendant of Charles Gottlieb Kolb. Charles immigrated from Germany to the United States in 1854 and settled in Ida County, Iowa. This man has many descendants in Iowa. Two certified Century Farms are still owned by his descendants, having been handed down within the family for over 100 years.

What had been lost in those years, however, was Charles Kolb’s ancestry. In this post, I will discuss how we were finally able to trace Charles’ ancestors in Germany. In the process, I’ll offer tips on using an invaluable resource that may help you trace your German ancestors: the Württemberg Emigration Index.Continue reading “German Immigration: Charles Kolb of Württemberg”

Non-Traditional Family Trees: Adoption in FamilySearch

This tutorial is about adoption. In this case, adoption refers to when a child is raised by someone other than their parents, whether or not their last name was changed or any official adoption process was carried out in the court system. (In many cases, especially going back to the 19th century and before, official court sanctioned adoptions were not nearly as common as simply taking in and raising a child with no legal process or contract.) The adoptive parents could be grandparents, aunt and uncle, other family members, or complete strangers. In some situations this would be referred to as guardianship or fostering rather than adoption.

The point here is to establish a timeline of the child’s life and indicate their relationships. Knowing whose household the child was living in and when they lived there can be a tremendous help in deciphering records regarding the child. Any information you find on relationships and family events should be recorded on your family tree.Continue reading “Non-Traditional Family Trees: Adoption in FamilySearch”

British Newspaper Research: A Family Scandal

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What might you discover about your ancestors in British newspapers?

Findmypast continues to scan, transcribe, and upload to its searchable databases the newspaper collection of the British Library, an incredible project. Already, this database is invaluable to those researching ancestors who lived on the island of Great Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries. My own ancestor, William Clark, immigrated from England as recently as 1873. I delved into this archive to discover more about his family.Continue reading “British Newspaper Research: A Family Scandal”