Revolutionary War Pension Records

War is an unfortunate event in the history of nations. War can bring so much sorrow and create heroes. But with war comes volumes of records which is fortunate for those wanting to know more about their loved ones who served in these wars. The Revolutionary War is abounding with records that have been preserved and digitized after all these years.

The Revolutionary War’s duration was from 1776 to 1783. The typical ages of service were from 16 to 60 years old. If your ancestor was born between the years of 1715 – 1767, they could have served in the Revolutionary War.

Fold3.com, a subscription website owned by Ancestry, is available for free during holidays that celebrate the military or available for free at the St. George FamilySearch Center. Fold3.com has ALL 80,000 pension applications digitized. These records are from The National Archives and are images of the originals, so you get to see the handwriting, water stains, and all that these records went through during the war.

If your ancestor or heirs applied for a pension, you have a goldmine of information available. These pension records can give you the veteran’s history and the battles they fought in. Many times, it is the wife applying for the pension and to prove their marriage they would take pages out of the family bible for evidence. You can find out their state of health and more about their life after the war.

Be prepared for many pages of information. Some pension files can be up to fifty pages or more. To prove that the pension applicant had served in the Revolutionary War, they sent many pages of correspondence from military leaders and fellow soldiers as proof. These letters were handwritten and often included descriptions of the battles they fought. Heirs had to prove their relationship to the veteran, so they too sent letters as evidence of those relationships. The government kept all evidence and correspondence associated with these veterans. The information you can glean from these records is: birth date and place, their children, death date and place, spouse and marriage date, the military unit served in, physical description, and their residency.

The information available in the pension files is astounding. The battles our ancestors served in become more personal. It also brings these ancestors to life to see letters they, their family and associates have personally written.

Pioneer Mourning Rituals

Daughters of Utah Pioneers’ lesson for May was about pioneer gravesites. The lesson started off with mourning rituals of the pioneers. For our ancestors who lived in the 1800’s, their mortality rate was high. This closeness to death led to many rituals that were important to help them cope with the difficult lives they lived.

Our ancestors brought these mourning rituals with them as they immigrated to the U.S. In Europe, the tradition was to carry the body out of the house feet first so that the spirit could not look back into the house and beckon a family member to join them. The Danish brought the tradition that when a person passed away, they opened a window so that the soul could fly out.

When Queen Victoria’s husband passed away, she created many of the mourning rituals that the English brought to America. There was even a manual printed with detailed instructions for mourning etiquette. Queen Victoria introduced the wearing of black, that included clothes, hat, jewelry and many other rituals.

During this era, the corpse was kept in the parlor of the home and watched over until the burial. This “wake” would last for four to five days. Flowers and candles were brought in to mask the odors. This “wake” was done to allow time to make sure they did not bury someone who had not died and allowed time for family and friends to arrive as travel was slow. A wreath was hung on the door with black ribbons to announce a death. They drew the curtains, and clocks stopped at the time of death. Crepe-covered the mirrors. They often took photos of the deceased for a remembrance. Young couples were asked to “sit up” with the dead. The night watch was not a solemn occasion for them, but an opportunity to court.

There was a fear of being buried alive, so the families buried loved ones with a rope in their hand that was attached to a bell outside the grave. If the person awoke and found themselves in a coffin, they could ring the bell for help and brought about the expression, “saved by the bell.”

These rituals may seem strange and bizarre to us, but they brought comfort to our ancestors. As we read our family histories and come across stories like these, we can empathize with them and the challenging times they had.

Games for Family Gatherings

Games are fun to play at family gatherings. It’s even more fun when you learn about your family and ancestors as you play. Fortunately for us, there are developers who have created fun apps for use with FamilySearch. These apps are great for family gatherings.

The first app that comes to mind is Geneopardy. (geneopardy.fhtl.byu.edu.) It is a Jeopardy-type game that takes information from your FamilySearch file to create questions. Geneopardy is not an easy game and is fun when played in teams. The categories are dates, places, people, facts, and other. The questions can be trivial so that a pedigree chart might be helpful.

Another fun app is Relative Finder at realtivefinder.org. Relative Finder, created by BYU, helps you discover if you are related to Prophets, Presidents, friends, and many categories of famous people. You may discover that you have a Mayflower ancestor and that can spark an interest in the youth and adults alike, and they may want to know more.

Wheel of Family Fortune is another app produced by BYU (wheel.fhtl.byu.edu.). It has up to four players or teams and works just like Wheel of Fortune on TV. The words are from your FamilySearch file so you will have to sign in. It does give a hint about the word. You click to spin the wheel to find out how much you can win if the letter you choose is in the word. It is tons of fun.

Compare-a-Face is so much fun to play. You compare your face to your ancestors to see where you got your good looks from or maybe your nose. You need to upload a picture of yourself, and it compares it to the photos of ancestors found in your FamilySearch file. If you are doing this at family gatherings, make sure the attendees send you photos of themselves to upload into this program. Compare-a-Face is located at familysearch.org/discovery/compare. FamilySearch Discovery has more apps coming soon so be sure and check the website every now and again.

These games will be memory makers at family gatherings. There are more enjoyable games found in the app gallery on FamilySearch or even found by doing a google search for family history games. Learning about who we are and where we came from can sure be fun and is the secret to a happy family!

A Family Tree Gathering

As summer approaches, many thoughts turn to family gatherings and family reunions. A fun reunion is to do a family tree gathering. A family tree gathering is when the family gathers to honor and learn about their ancestors. FamilySearch Blog’s article, “Five Easy Ways to Enrich Your Family Reunion,” has some great ideas for a family tree gathering reunion.

Share Family Stories
One family decided to spotlight six people. The descendants of these people were given a few months to prepare a five to ten-minute presentation about their assigned person. Some did collages, slideshows, videos, or told stories that were full of humor and retrospect.

Share Family Photos
Before the family reunion, organizers called everyone to bring their photo albums, scrapbooks, and family photos. They set up photo viewing stations where family members could go from booth to booth to see the photos brought. The sharing of photos is a great time to scan the photos and have them uploaded to the memories section of FamilySearch.

Some families have put the photos onto cardstock and made a deck of memory cards or find a match. If someone found a match, they could earn extra points for sharing a story of the ancestor pictured on the card.

Perform Family Skits
A skit could be about family love stories or other fun memories from ancestors. Those families that don’t care for skits could assign out to everyone over sixteen a couple to research and share their research with the other members of the family. These stories can be collected and put into a binder to share with everyone and FamilySearch.

Capture Oral Histories
Bring interview prompts and divide up into groups to interview the senior members of the family. Make sure that each person in each group gets to ask a question. Be sure to record these interviews and then transcribe them to share with the other family members and be sure to share these histories on FamilySearch.

Highlight Heirlooms
Before the reunion, ask those who have heirlooms if they could bring them to the reunion and share the story behind them. Be sure and take pictures and share the stories with members of the family and on FamilySearch.

There are many more ideas. As you gather for your family reunions this summer, think of having a family tree gathering. A family tree gathering is a fun way to introduce your family members to their ancestors.

Old Letters for DNA Testing

Living DNA announced at RootsTech that they were able to locate someone’s father through the DNA off a postage stamp. I was standing in line at the Living DNA booth to purchase a DNA kit from them, and all around me was the talk of postage stamp DNA. The discussions were basically about what letters and from whom did they have in their possession. Now, these old letters have taken on a new purpose.

Adoptee Anthea had been abandoned under a blackberry bush when she was about nine months old. Her hands were tied so she could not move. A family heard her cries, and she was rescued and adopted by a very loving family. When Anthea was older, she found out her story and went in search of her biological family. DNA testing found four brothers who were candidates for who Anthea’s biological father could be. Two of the brothers showed that they were first cousins, so that left the other two brothers as potential matches. A cousin had saved letters from those last two brothers, and it was the salvia from these stamps that provided the DNA to prove which one was Anthea’s father. An incredible story, but it opens a whole new way of identifying our family members.

Denise May Levenick’s blog, theFamilyCurator.com, has an article “How to Preserve and Test Old Letters for Grandma’s DNA.” Denise interviewed David Nicholson, Managing Director at Living DNA, and he stated that the ability to test postage stamps for DNA would be available by the end of 2018 at the cost of $1,000 - $2,500. Living DNA will test both the stamp and the flap that was licked.

David Nicholson’s advice on how to save these old letters is:

1. Look for family letters where the flap and seal are intact. Multiple samples are best. If the letters are stored in a bundle, the ones in the middle are usually in better shape.

2. Wear white cotton gloves when handling these letters to avoid further contamination.

3. Keep the letters stored in acid-free folders and boxes in moderate conditions. Avoid plastic. Metal file drawers or archival boxes are best.
If you have any keepsake letters from your relatives, you may want to hold on to them. They may hold the secret to your past. How to preserve letters for DNA testing is great information and thank you, Denise, at theFamilyCurator.com for sharing.

Clues in the U.S. Census Records

Census records are a great way to search for your ancestors. They are easy to search and readily available. If you’re are just searching for families and residency in these census records, then you may be missing the clues that will help you break your brick walls.

The 1840 census is two pages wide. On the right-hand page, there is a column for Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services, and the column next to that is for the person’s age. The 1840 census is a “name of household only” census, but the Penson information is for anyone living in that household.

The1850-1870 Censuses have Agriculture and Manufacturer's schedules besides the Federal Census. If your ancestor is listed as a farmer or manufactures something, check out these schedules at Ancestry and FamilySearch.

The 1850 census asks if you were married that year.

1870 census asks if your mother or father were of foreign birth. Great for finding children of immigrant ancestors.

The 1880 census asks questions on lines 16-20 about disabilities. If there are check marks in these disability boxes, be sure and look at the Special Schedule of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes.

In the 1900 census you will find years in current marriage, month and year of birth, mother of how many children and how many are still living. Naturalization status, year of immigration, and how many years lived in the US.

On the right-hand side of the1910 Census is a question about Civil War Service. The question asked is "Whether a survivor of the Union or Confederate Army or Navy?" The abbreviations used in this column for UA for Union Army; UN for Union Navy; CA for Confederate Army; and CN for Confederate Navy.

The 1920 census asks the year of naturalization.

In the 1930 census, you will find the age at first marriage and if you are a military veteran, which war.

The1940 Census has an X in a circle by the name of the informant of the census information. If it was Harry, the border, then the information may have errors in it. The informant information is a nice heads-up to the accuracy of the information.

There is so much more information available. Be sure and look at the headings of each census year, and you may find the answers that help you find your ancestors.

U. S. Census Records Class Handout FamilySearch