How to Find Your Civil War Ancestors
Finding Your Civil War Ancestry
Learn how to find your Civil War ancestors through a combination of online genealogical research and mail requests. Anyone who’s roots in this country that go back at least 150 years should have had some ancestor fight on one side or the other in America’s deadliest war.
Even people who assume their grandparents only came over a generation or two might have ancestors who fought in the war between the states, because someone on their mother’s side of the family might have had cousins who fought in the war.
Why Learn About Your Civil War Ancestors?
The Civil War is the seminal moment in this country’s history, when two large sections of the country fought a war to decide the meaning of freedom and democracy, along with the meaning of “Union” and whether states or the Federal Authority would have supreme authority.
The Civil War determined if Americans would live in one united country and become the most powerful nation of the 20th century, or whether we would live under two (or more) divided governments, bitter rivals with a history of internecine strife, much like the divided nations of Europe at the time.
Besides, because the war between the North and the South was a purely American war, the Civil War is the quintessential American moment. Many of the arguments that led to the conflict are still being debated today: race relations, states rights, the power of the central government and the love of ones country.
The Civil War was our war, fought out to the last drop of blood on dozens of battlefields across the eastern half of our nation, so it’s natural that Americans are going to want to learn how their ancestors were affected by that war. Because of Americans’ continued interest in this tragedy of our common past, where over 600,000 Americans died, there are tremendous resources available for those wanting to learn about their Civil War ancestors.
Research Your Family History
Before you begin an online search to find your Civil War ancestors, obtain information about your family line as far back as you can. Focus on any names family members provide you with, while collecting any alternative spelling for family surnames in your family’s ancestry.
Last names were a little more fluid in the 19th century, or were at least copied down by censors and army bureaucrats in more idiosyncratic ways, so you want to know any alternate spellings which might trip you up. Get as much information as possible, before you ever begin searching the military service records.
Conduct Ancestry Studies
Learn as much about your family’s genealogical history and get a working model of your family tree. Go to a website like Ancestry.com to fill out your family history. This kind of background research should help you make connections when you see disparate names in the records later on.
Study the 1850 Census Records
The 1850 Census is important, because this was the first census to list the entire family in the census count. You’ll be able to learn the age of the male members of the family and make guesses as to which ones were of service age.
You might think the 1860 Census Records would be more important, but the 1850 records is just as likely, if not more, to list the entire nuclear family of one of your ancestors. By studying these names, you’ll be able to track them back to the source family, which might help you in locating ancestors as the years get closer to the war.
Research the 1860 Census Records
The 1860 Census gets you within a year of the start of the war, so you’ll have a better idea where your ancestors were living at the outbreak of hostilities. This is important, because military service on both sides of the war was divided up by state.
If you had an ancestor living in Virginia at the outbreak of hostilities, you’ll know to search through the Virginia military records. If your distant cousin lived in New York State in 1860, it’s likeliest you’ll find them serving in a New York regiment.
Do a Civil War Soldier & Sailor Lookup
The “Soldiers & Sailors System” is a government-run website which lists the service records of soldiers and sailors during the Civil War, including federal soldiers of the United States and soldiers fighting on the side of the Confederate States.
Request an NATF Form 86
Get records from the National Archives by requesting a NATF “Form 86“. The National Archives contains the “Compiled Military Service Record” or CMSR. Obtaining an NATF Form 86 lets you petition the CMSR to release to you the service records for your genealogical forebearers.
The address to request such a form is below.
National Archives and Records Administration
8th Street & Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C., 20408
To obtain a Compiled Military Service Record, you’ll need to pay $25 per paper record. So be sure that you’re getting the records for someone in your genealogy, before you request these records.
Information inside a CMSR includes such things as enlistment date, military release date, date of death, prisoner of war stats, hospital rolls and so on.
Civil War Ancestry and Names
This can be frustrating at times, because the records were a less precise in those days. Because people didn’t have to show a drivers license or national identification card, and because soldiers of your bloodline might have had reasons to give aliases (age, multiple enlistments), finding your ancestors’ Civil War records can be difficult. But with the tools above, you should know how to find your Civil War ancestors.
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 6:24 pm and is filed under Birth Records, Genealogical Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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