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| Author: | US Goverment |
| Publisher: | National Archives' Civil War Pension Index Cards inquire@nara.gov or call 1-800-234-8861 or 301-713-6800. |
| Text from Source: | Getting the Most Out of the Civil War Pension Index, Part I Military records are among the most sought after sources of information for family historians. Ancestry.com subscribers have access to several helpful indexes to Civil War records. One of the most popular of these databases is the Civil War Pension Index, which allows users to locate their ancestors in the index, and then view and print out digitized copies of the actual National Archives' Civil War Pension Index Cards for use in requesting pension records from NARA. Cynthia Fox and Connie Potter of the National Archives have submitted the following guide for Ancestry.com users to help them understand the process for requesting these records from the National Archives, and to help avoid some common mistakes in their requests. The first part of the guide addresses, "Ordering Copies of Original Pension Records from the National Archives." Part II, which will run next week in the Ancestry Daily News, will address "Ordering Copies of Original Compiled Military Service Records from the National Archives." Part III, "Changes in Ordering Copies of Original Pension and Service Records from the National Archives" is available in the Ancestry.com Library, and anyone who is planning on ordering these records, should read this as well. Part III outlines some recent changes in the procedures for requesting military records and addresses some common misunderstandings. It is available at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4005.asp I. Ordering Copies of Original Pension Records from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Most Union army soldiers, their widows, or minor children applied for a pension. In rare cases, a dependent father or mother applied for a pension. The pension application file will often contain a statement of service prepared by the Adjutant General's Office and it may contain much medical information if the soldier lived for a number of years after the war. To obtain a widow's pension, the widow had to provide proof of marriage, such as a copy of the record kept by county or local officials, or by affidavit from the minister or some other person. Applications on behalf of the soldier's minor children had to supply both proof of the soldier's marriage and proof of the children's birth. You can order copies of Civil War and later pension applications by using the form NATF 85, "Order for copies of Federal Pension or Bounty Land Warrant Applications." NARA does not have pension applications for service in the Confederate Army or Navy although some of the former Confederate States did pay pensions. Those applications are in the various State Archives. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Web site at www.nara.gov lists the institutions that have Confederate pensions, their addresses, and information about how to conduct research with them. There are several indexes to the Civil War and Later pensions. The most important and frequently used is the name index. It is available as a NARA microfilm publication (T288). It was recently scanned and computerized by Ancestry.com and is available to subscribers at: www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/military/cwpi/main.htm The online pension index is an exact copy of the index used by National Archives to retrieve pension files for copying. The index entries include a lot of information that you can use to identify your particular soldier. By reading the card, you can see the units in which the soldier served, find the widow's name, learn the place of residence after the war, and you can even figure out approximate dates of the soldier's death. Enclosing a printout of the card image will cut at least a week off of the amount of time it takes for us to locate a file and send it to be copied. Sometimes it will save even more time. NARA staff uses the index just as you do. Getting an unindexed request through that step takes about a week. Our indexers actually print out the index card for the searchers to use when we index a file. You could cut some time by writing the numbers on the form, but be sure to write the correct numbers. Here's how it works. The file is supposed to be under the last certificate number. If a soldier applied for a pension based on wounds or illness suffered while in the service, his application file got a number. Once the pension office had reviewed the application and decided that the soldier was an invalid and deserved a pension, they gave him a certificate number and moved the entire application file into the soldiers certificate files under a new number. The original application number became void. When the soldier died his widow applied to have the benefits continued. Her application was given a number but the soldier's pension certificate file was not moved to her new application number. In fact, her application becomes part of the soldier's file. Once the claim for continued benefits was approved, the entire file was given a new number as a widow's certificate. Minor children and invalid parents claims were processed in the same way as a widow's claim. This system continued until the beginning of the 20th century. The pension office decided to stop moving files around and to create a single pension series of certificate ("C") files. Old pension certificate files that were still active were transferred ("X") to the C files. The XC numbers, which appear at the bottom of the index cards, indicate that a file was transferred to the C pension series. There are actually five separate series of Civil War and Later Pension files. There are two series of applications that were rejected and never converted to certificates of pension. These series are the soldier's or survivor's original (SO) application and the widow's original (WO). These files tend to be thinner but that is not always the case. Sometimes a soldier or a widow kept reapplying each time the laws became liberalized, and the files are very rich. There are three series of certificate files: soldier's certificates (SC); widow's certificates (WC), which include minor child and indigent parents; and certificates (XC or C). If the file isn't where it is supposed to be we have to assume that someone forgot to move the file and it is still under the old number. That's why enclosing a copy of the index card saves time. There are also going to be other times when there is an index entry for this soldier that appears to be correct, however, the file does not appear to be in our custody. It may have been that someone made a mistake and removed the files without documentation prior to transfer to the National Archives more than fifty years ago. That kind of mistake is virtually impossible to correct. We don't know where it is and have no possibility of finding it. The clerks who worked in the pension office one hundred years ago were thorough. If you think about keeping track of all of the files, making sure that the checks went out and widows and orphans continued to get benefits, without a single identifying number like a service number or a Social Security number; you realize that they did a terrific job. On the other hand, they were human. If we go to retrieve the file and the pension file cited does not appear to relate to the soldier listed on your form, we have to: 1. Re-check the alphabetical index (T288), or 2. Check the organizational index (T289) for Civil War units. Sometimes we catch an error that way: 540 611 on the alphabetical index card turns out to be 540 661 on the organizational index card. In some cases, we know that we don't have files for a soldier in the index. The file may be a XC or C pension claim number. The XC or C pension file number should appear at the bottom of the index card. There are a lot of C and XC files that we do not have. If there was anyone still alive who had a claim against the pension in roughly 1928, then NARA probably won't have the file. It was still an active record and therefore is still in the legal custody of what is now the Department of Veterans' Affairs. To get access, you have to contact your local Veteran's Affairs office. The sites of these are listed on the Web site at: www.va.gov Send your local VA office the XC pension number and the other soldier identifying information that you can provide. Do not, however, include the name of the war. Then write: "I am requesting that you conduct a Beneficiary Identification and Records Locator System (BIRLS) search for the file and retrieve it for my use from the Federal Records Center where it is currently housed. Procedures for recall of records from Federal Records Centers are found in VA Handbook 6300.1, Chapter six, Part five." They will retrieve the file and either 1. Make you a copy or, 2. Invite you to their office to review the file. There are also a few civilian pensions in the index. For access to files with number designations "R-###" contact the Bureau of Retirement and Insurance, Office of Personnel Management, 19th and E Streets NW, Washington, DC 20415. Finally, we do not have all of the rejected original applications filed by soldiers or their widows (SO and WO). About half of the SO applications were destroyed before NARA was created in 1934. Some of the widow's applications were returned to the applicants. Sometimes it takes forever to get a response. There are several reasons that you might not receive an answer from us right away. The record requested may have been removed from the files for reference purposes. Another researcher can have requested copies of the same file. If you know that someone has just requested a file, don't submit a request for the same file. The other person's request will come in, the file will be pulled for copying and when your request gets processed, you guessed it, no file. Your request will go into a box for double-checking. The average length of time for a file to be off the shelf is four to six weeks. There are ten thousand to twelve thousand pension files off the shelf at any point in time. Researchers who visit NARA in Washington, DC, use the same files. There is no way that we can find a single file until they have been put back into some sort of order. The supervisor knows all of this and does not reassign a request until a minimum of four weeks has passed. Another problem in filling orders quickly is our own mistakes. When we take a file from the stacks, we try to make sure that it will be returned to its proper place. We are also human. Sometimes we make mistakes. If the file was pulled more than twelve weeks ago, we declare it a misfile. That means that your request goes into a box and some of our most experienced staff will try to find the file. That can take some time. There are about three hundred thousand pension application files and they all look alike. If you have not heard from us in ten to twelve weeks, you can give us a call at 1- 800-234-8861 or 301-713-6800 or send us an e-mail at: mailto:inquire@nara.gov. Be sure to have your form number handy. We have a new order processing system and we can check on the status of orders but we need a form number. The average Civil War pension application file is 126 pages. You can order the complete file for a flat fee of $37. Our current fee for paper copies is 50 cents per page, so this can be a savings. If you choose, you can order a document packet. This will be limited to specific documents. These specific documents are: 1) Declaration for a pension 2) Declaration for a widow's pension 3) The Adjutant General's Office statement of service 4) Questionnaires completed by applicants (numbered forms) 5) Pension Dropped cards 6) Marriage certificates 7) Death certificates 8) Discharge certificates These are also listed in the instructions for the form. If the documents are not in the file that you requested, you will not receive other documents to replace them. You can get blank forms by e-mailing mailto: inquire@nara.gov or calling 1-800-234-8861 or 301-713-6800. We are working on creating an online order form but we are not there yet. Don't try to electrostatically reproduce the forms. Each form has a unique number. If you send us six forms with the same number, we will mail them back with six new blank forms. Status tracking needs a unique number for each request. Remember to pull off the pink copy of the form NATF85 for your records. It has the form number "F####" and it has the phone number and address to call or write. The most important thing to remember is do not forget to write your name and address on each and every order. Since we have a new order processing system, we don't get the original forms anymore. We get scanned images delivered to us electronically. We can't process an order without a name and address. 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. Those interested in requesting military records from the National Archives should also read, "Changes in Ordering Copies of Original Pension and Service Records from the National Archives" at: www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/4005.asp A big thanks to Cynthia Fox and Connie Potter at the National Archives for putting this guide together for us. Next week's installment of this guide will address "Ordering Copies of Original Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) from the National Archives." Stay tuned. Terms & Conditions | Privacy Statement | About Us | Partner with Us | Contact Us Copyright 2000, MyFamily.com. 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