Tuesday, April 24, 2012

2012 GENEALOGY & MILITARY HISTORY PROGRAMS

The following programs are sponsored or co-sponsored by St. Louis Public Library. All are free and open to the public. Places and dates listed below are correct as of 23 April 2012. Registration is required only if specifically noted.

Saturday, May 19, 2012, 10 am-Noon—Salt Beef and Blue Mass: Civil War Supply and Transportation. Buder Branch. Join us as Tom Pearson discusses book, manuscript, microfilm, and Internet sources of information on Civil War movement of men, animals, weapons, medicines, equipment, and supplies.

Saturday, June 16, 2012, 10 am-Noon—The Regional Branches of the National Archives: Kansas City. Buder Branch. Join us as Tom Pearson discusses the microfilm and manuscript holdings and website of the regional branch of the National Archives located at Kansas City, MO.

Thursday, October 4, 2012, 7:30 pm-9 pm—The Witches of Salem: Researching Your High-Flying Ancestors. SCCGS, St. Luke’s Parish Hall, Belleville, IL. Join us as Tom Pearson discusses book, manuscript, microfilm, and Internet sources of information on persons accused as witches in Europe and colonial New England.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012, 6:30 pm-8 pm—Honor the Fallen: Finding Death & Burial Information for American Soldiers & Veterans, 1775-2012. Hayner Library, Alton, IL. Join us as Tom Pearson discusses book, manuscript, microfilm, and Internet sources of information on the deaths and burials of American soldiers and veterans.

Buder Branch Library
4401 Hampton Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63109
314-352-2900

Parking on the Buder Branch lot is free and close to the door!

Tom Pearson, Reference Librarian
Special Collections Department
St. Louis Public Library

http://www.slpl.org/
tpearson@slpl.org

NOTE: Please consider showing your support for our genealogy, local history, and military history collections and programs by giving to our St. Louis Public Library Capital Campaign. The Central Library renovation is nearing completion (Grand Opening is scheduled for December 2012—look for details on our website and in our monthly Check-It-Out publication), but we’ve still got to finish paying for all the improvements! And remember: no gift is too small (or too BIG)!

Information about the Central Library Renovation Project: http://central.slpl.org/

Make an online donation here: http://www.slplfoundation.org/campaign/

You can also write a check payable to the St. Louis Public Library Foundation, and mail it here:

Rick Simoncelli
St. Louis Public Library Foundation
1415 Olive Street
St. Louis, MO 63103

By the way—-a short note saying how much you appreciate our genealogy, local history, and military history collections and programs would be greatly appreciated!

Friday, April 13, 2012

GENEALOGICAL RECORDS OF THE WAR OF 1812, PART IV

War of 1812-- Military Service & Enlistment Records

Microfilm

1. Index to Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Soldiers Who Served During the War of 1812. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. 234 reels.[Central-MI 973.74]

2. Registers of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. 47 reels. [Central-MI 973]

Books

3. Callahan, Edward William. List of officers of the Navy of the United States and of the Marine Corps from 1775 to 1900; comprising a complete register of all present and former commissioned, warranted, and appointed officers of the United States Navy and of the Marine Corps, regular and volunteer. Compiled from the official records of the Navy Dept. New York: Haskell House, 1969. [Central-HG 353.7]

4. Coles, Harry Lewis. The War of 1812. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965. [Central-ST 973.5]

5. Gandrud, Pauline Myra Jones. Alabama Soldiers: Revolution, War of 1812, and Indian Wars / compiled by Pauline Jones Gandrud; edited by Bobbie Jones McLane. Hot Springs National Park, AR: B. J. McLane: P. J. Gandrud, 1975- 1992, 15 vols. [Central-HG, ST 929.3761]

6. Gardner, Charles K. A dictionary of all officers, who have been commissioned, or have been appointed and served, in the army of the United States, since the inauguration of their first president in 1789, to the first January, 1853,--with every commission of each;--including the distinguished officers of the volunteers and militia of the states, and of the navy and marine corps, who have served with the land forces. New York : G. P. Putnam and Company, 1853. [Central-ST 353.6]

7. Hamersly, Thomas Holdup Stevens. Complete general navy register of the United States of America from 1776 to 1887 arranged in alphabetical order; containing the names of all officers of the navy, volunteer and regular, who have entered the service from the time of the Revolutionary War to the present time [1776-1887], containing the official record of each officer as on file at the Navy Department, showing the dates of their original entry, of their progressive rank, and in what manner they left the service, if not now in it. Compiled from the official records by Thomas H. S. Hamersly. New York: T.H.S.Hamersly, publisher, 1888. [Central-ST 353.7]

8.Huntsberry, Thomas Vincent and Joanne M. Huntsberry. Maryland Privateers, War of 1812. Baltimore, MD : J. Mart, 1983. [Central-HG 973.525]

9. Huntsberry, Thomas Vincent and Joanne M. Huntsberry. Western Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia Militia in defense of Maryland, 1805 to 1815 / by Thomas V. Huntsberry; assisted by Joanne M. Huntsberry. Baltimore, MD: T.V. Huntsberry, 1983. [Central-HG 973.52452]

10. Irving, L. Homfray. Officers of the British Forces in Canada During the War of 1812-15. Welland, Ontario, Canada: Welland Tribune Printers, 1908. [Central-ST 973.5]

11. Kentucky. Adjutant-General's Office. Kentucky Soldiers of the War of 1812 [originally published in 1891 under title: Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky: Soldiers of the War of 1812. With an added index compiled by Minnie S. Wilder, 1931, and a new introduction by G. Glenn Clift. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1969. [Central-HG 973.524]

12. Kratovil, Judy Swaim. Index to War of 1812 Service Records for Volunteer Soldiers from Georgia/ abstracted by Judy Swaim Kratovil. Atlanta, GA [P.O. Box 450062, Atlanta 30345]: J. S. Kratovil, 1986. [Central-HG 973.52]

13. Marine, William Matthew. The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815, with an appendix containing eleven thousand names by Louis Henry Dielman. Baltimore, MD: Society of the War of 1812 in Maryland, 1913. [Central HG 973.5]

14. Moore, Mary Brown Daniel. Record of Commissions of Officers in the Tennessee Militia, 1796-1815/ compiled by Mrs. John Trotwood Moore ; with a new introd. by Robert M. McBride; and an index for the years 1812-1815 by Anita Comtois. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977. [Central-HG 973.4]

15. North Carolina. Adjutant General's Department. Muster Rolls of the Soldiers of the War of 1812 : detached from the Militia of North Carolina in 1812 and 1814 / published under the direction of the Adjutant General ; with an added index by Maurice S. Toler [reprint of the 1926 ed. published by Barber Printing Co., Winston-Salem, N.C.- originally published in 1851]. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1976. [Central-HG 973.524]

16. Sistler, Byron and Samuel Sistler. Tennesseans in the War of 1812/transcribed and indexed by Byron and Samuel Sistler. Nashville, TN : B. Sistler & Associates, 1992. [Central-HG 973.52468]

17. Wright, F. Edward. Maryland Militia, War of 1812. Silver Spring, Md.: Family Line, c1979-1980, 7 vols. [Central-HG 973.52452]

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

GENEALOGICAL RECORDS OF THE WAR OF 1812, PART III

11. Bounty land records
12. Pension papers & pensioner lists
13. Military censuses
14. Casualty & burial lists
15. Hereditary & lineage society records

Bounty Land Records. War of 1812 volunteers who met certain conditions regarding length and character of service were entitled to federal bounty lands. Most veterans received grants of 40-160 acres, although a special act of Congress passed in 1814 doubled the acreage allotted to 320. War of 1812 bounty land acts passed prior to 1850 allotted land only to enlisted men, not to officers. Until 1842, the land awarded to War of 1812 veterans lay in special military districts within the present-day states of Illinois, Arkansas, and Missouri. After 1842, War of 1812 veterans could claim any unrestricted public domain land with their bounty land warrants. Before 1852, War of 1812 bounty land warrants could not be legally assigned to a second party [although many veterans circumvented this law by signing a power of attorney which allowed the transfer of the warrant to another person]. Bounty land application files typically provide the veteran's name, age, military unit, place of residence, term of service and, if applicable, the name of the veteran's widow or heir. These files [War of 1812 Bounty Land Warrants, 1815-1858, M848- 14 rolls] are indexed on roll no. 1 for assignees in the Arkansas and Missouri military districts. Other listings are in roughly alphabetical order. The Missouri and Illinois State Archives websites indexes to land records include many War of 1812 bounty land assignees:

Missouri Land Patents
Illinois Land Patents

Pension Papers & Pensioners' Lists. Prior to 1871, only disabled War of 1812 volunteer soldiers [or the widows or orphans of soldiers killed in action or disabled during the war] received federal pensions for War of 1812 service. A law passed in 1871 provided a pension for any surviving War of 1812 volunteer soldiers who had served 60 days or more, and provided a pension for widows of War of 1812 volunteer soldiers who had married their spouses in 1815 or earlier. A second law passed in 1878 reduced the term of service requirement to either 14 days continuous service or participation in a battle or skirmish.

Pensions for War of 1812 soldiers can be listed in either of two NARA microfilm sets. The first, Index to Old Wars Pension Files [NARA series T316, 7 rolls], covers pensions granted to veterans [or widows] of the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps who died in service or were disabled during the period 1784-1861. The second, Index to War of 1812 Pension Application Files [NARA series M313, 102 rolls], covers those War of 1812 veterans and their survivors who were granted pensions based on the acts of 1871 and 1878. The actual pension files covered by these indexes are available from NARA. You can also check to see if the subscription services, Fold3 or Ancestry.com, have digitized the pension record of interest:

Ancestry.com
Fold3.com

Persons checking for a War of 1812 pension record may also wish to consult a book set called Index to War of 1812 Pension Files by Virgil D. White. There are several book sets which list persons in the United States were receiving federal military pensions during the following years: 1818, 1820, 1835, and 1883. There are also books which list only pensioners from certain states, including Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia [all of the above-named books and book sets are owned by St. Louis Public Library- see bibliography in Part IV for details].

Military Censuses. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, several states compiled lists of veterans of various wars residing in that state in a given year. St. Louis Public Library owns such registers for Iowa [1886] and Nebraska [1893, 1897, and 1915- see bibliography in Part IV for details].

You can also check to see if the subscription services, Fold3 or Ancestry.com, have digitized the military census of interest:

Ancestry.com
Fold3.com

Casualty & Burial Records. The burial place of a War of 1812 soldier can be discovered in a number of ways. If you know his religion and the county he lived in, finding his grave may be a relatively simple matter of checking cemetery books published for that county. Veterans of various wars are often mentioned in "Goodspeed" type county histories of the 1880s and 1890s [St. Louis Public Library owns many books of these sorts for numerous counties in Missouri and in many states east of the Mississippi River- see our catalog for details: http://www.slpl.org There can even be a biographical sketch of the veteran in a county history, which may list date of death and place of burial.

If the veteran or his widow collected a pension based on his War of 1812 service, the pension file often includes a notice of his death which may state his burial place. A will or estate record in the office of the Circuit Clerk in the county where the veteran died may also provide information of interest about the veteran, including possibly his date of death and place of burial.

You can also check to see if the subscription services, Fold3 or Ancestry.com, have digitized a source containing the record of a burial of interest:

Ancestry.com
Fold3.com

Some state archives maintain lists of veterans buried in that state. The Illinois State Archives has an online database called "Database of the 1929 Roll of Honor, " which can be accessed here:

Database of 1929 Roll of Honor

The Roll of Honor was the product of a survey made of Illinois cemeteries in 1929 which recorded the graves of veterans of America's wars up to that point in time. The Roll of Honor was published at that time as a book set. The online version can be searched by name of the veteran.

St. Louis Public Library also owns a book which lists War of 1812 veterans buried in Tennessee [see bibliography in Part IV for details].

Hereditary & Lineage Society Records. Societies of this sort seek members who have an ancestor who was a War of 1812 soldier, sailor, or marine. Members had to submit proofs that their ancestor was a War of 1812 veteran, and proof that they are in fact descended from that veteran. If the society allows public access to its files, such files can be gold mines for persons seeking information on a War of 1812 ancestor. St. Louis Public Library owns a number of books which list members of such societies and the ancestors they used to gain admittance to the society [see bibliography in Part IV for details].

You can also check to see if the subscription services, Fold3 or Ancestry.com, have digitized a source containing heritage/lineage society records of interest:

Ancestry.com
Fold3.com

NAVIGATING THE 1940 U.S. CENSUS

Some 1940 Census guides and finding aids of interest:

How to Start Your 1940 Census Research

1940 U.S. Census—a Genealogy Research Guide

1940 Federal Population Census—General Information

1940 Census—Questions Asked, Enumerator Instructions, and Abbreviations and Codes Used By Enumerators

National Archives—1940 Census Finding Aids and E.D. Maps

Stephen Morse One-Steps—1940 Finding Aids (hover over U.S. Census in left-hand navigation bar to find 1940 finding aids)

View Short Films Used to Train 1940 Census Enumerators