Civil War records to be digitized
Ξ October 26th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Genealogy News |
Washington, DC…Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Wayne Metcalfe, vice president of the Genealogical Society of Utah, announced Oct. 23, 2007, a five-year partnership agreement to digitize case files of approved pension applications of widows of Civil War Union soldiers from the National Archives.
GSU has many years of experience microfilming historical records at the National Archives and throughout the world and in recent years has moved to providing digital capture and publishing services. Digitization makes possible unprecedented access to the unique historic documents in the custody of the National Archives.
This partnership will begin with a pilot project to digitize, index, and make available the first 3,150 of the pension files. Upon successful completion of the pilot, GSU, doing business as FamilySearch, in conjunction with Footnote.com, intends to digitize and index all 1,280,000 Civil War and later widows’ files in the series. These records, of great interest to genealogists and others, are currently available only at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. The widows’ pension application files, a rich source of information about ordinary American citizens of the time, include supporting documents such as affidavits, depositions of witnesses, marriage certificates, birth records, death certificates, and pages from family bibles. [ Read More ]
Leave a reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.