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The Genealogy Guys Podcast & Genealogy Connection
Genealogy Connection #085 - Brian Rhinehart, Civil War Records
00:47:40
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign this is Genealogy Connection and I'm your host, Drew smith. In episode 85, I connect you the genealogist with Brian Reinhart, the owner of CivilWarRecords.com in addition to finding out how Brian became a genealogist, we learn what's available in the way of military related records at the National Archives and Records administration in Washington D.C. and the different types of records that can help you research research your ancestors military service and learn more about their family. Genealogy Connection is sponsored by RootsMagic and Vivid Picks. Now on with the show. Welcome to another episode of Genealogy Connection. I'm your host Drew Smith and I am glad to be joined by a gentleman who knows a lot about a certain kind of record or several records that are actually available at a very special facility. I'm joined by none other than other than Brian Reinhardt from civil war records.com and Brian, welcome to Genealogy Connection.
- [01:07]
B
Thank you so much, Drew. I'm so excited to be here. Been looking forward to this for a while, so I'm glad we're able to make this happen.
- [01:13]
A
I am too. I haven't done a Genealogy Connection in a while and most of the ones I do are usually with folks who do lots of things in genealogy. They do writing or they do speaking or they do computer programming or they do something else. And you have a very interesting niche in the genealogy community. We're going to get to that. But the first thing we deal with is your origin story. Like where in the heck did you come from, Brian? How did you get into this thing we call genealogy?
- [01:41]
B
Yeah, good question. So it's actually almost exactly 25 years ago now. I was in college. I was supposed to be writing a college paper and I heard about this new website that was out called Ancestry.com. maybe you've heard of it and don't know how new it was at that.
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A
Point, but I had to hear it probably very. Okay.
- [02:03]
B
It was right around then that I thought, I'm really supposed to be writing this college paper. But I'm really curious. I had never done anything with family history up until that moment. Logged into Ancestry, signed up for a free trial, put a couple family names in there, and within an hour or two I was back into the 1800s on this one particular family line. And I thought this was amazing.
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A
Sure.
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B
And kind of got hooked on it ever since. And so it started out as a procrastination from a college term paper, but it turned out to be a good thing. I've been doing genealogy ever since.
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A
So at some point okay, you've been doing it. What point was it or what led you to seeing that this could be a business opportunity and maybe you can talk about, well, yeah, your steps. How did you get from saying, oh, I can use ancestry to learn about my own family?
- [02:58]
B
And.
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A
And then I, there was obviously some point where you said, I can do stuff that other people need.
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B
Right. So I think my story follows the same pathway that a lot of people follow where you get that first initial attraction to the, the ancestry and you start becoming interested in that. I started researching my own family, started researching other people's families and I always thought this would be really cool to do, to make money on it, to do for a living. But I always had full time jobs. I always had a safe place that I was making money. And it's hard to make that leap of, yeah, I'm going to quit my job and take this risk. And I just didn't really think it was realistic to try to make a living doing it. Well, fate kind of intervened and I got unexpectedly laid off from the full time job that I had. This was back at the very end of 2016.
- [03:56]
A
Okay.
- [03:57]
B
So I thought, it's now or never, you know, I didn't choose to lose my job. I wonder if I can make this work. So that next year, poured myself into, I did the Progen study groups, the Boston University course, went to a lot of conferences, went to GRIP for the first time, just poured myself into the community, learning everything that I could. Around the same time I thought, I've always wanted to go to the National Archives because I have a lot of Civil War ancestors myself and I've always been curious, what can I learn about them? So I took this opportunity. Now that I was unemployed, I'm going to go down to the National Archives and spend a little bit of time down there, put the word out among some of these genealogy friends that I had made that, hey, I'm going to be at the archives if you want me to get anything. While you're there. While I'm there. And I got a lot of interest in that. And a light bulb kind of went off of, you know, this was really fun to go to the National Archives. Really fun to learn the process, to learn about my own ancestors. People actually paid me money to do stuff while I was there. So a light bulb went off. I'm like, I wonder if this is the opportunity I've been waiting for. So this opportunity that I do now kind of happened by accident, but it was a very happy accident that I've really been running with and trying to make a living on, and so far it's been working.
- [05:26]
A
So we're going to talk about that in a lot more detail in just a second. But let's go back because I'm interested in what you already said about your educational process. Many of us, you first said, oh, there's this ancestry site. I should play with this and try it out. And a lot of people do. But clearly what you did that maybe beginners don't always do right away certainly is seek out some educational opportunities. And you mentioned grip. You mentioned conferences. What was that like as far as your first experiences in attending conferences and institutes and whatever else you might have done? I mean, what. What was that like for you?
- [06:10]
B
Well, we'll talk about GRIP specifically. Back then it was the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh. So I went there, took a course about writing proof arguments. Kimberly Powell taught it. And the course itself was very valuable because it really helped me to learn more about how to organize my thoughts, organize my research, write these proof arguments. The real benefit that I didn't realize would happen was the networking that happened there, that I met a lot of people who were either already in the professional genealogy field or were kind of casually interested in it, but I got to get to know them and bounce ideas off each other. Just getting to know people in the genealogy community. That's the benefit of any of these conferences. Or I did the Progen study group, and I'm still in contact with several people that I was in that group with. Getting to know people who are doing this for a living is a benefit that you might not realize happens from those programs.
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A
Right, right. And yeah, your point is that there were so you met so many people who were, first of all, as you say, doing it for a living. They were making money at it and they were probably inspirational to. Oh, I could maybe do the same kind of thing because. Yeah, I mean, the typical genealogist is. Well, I don't know. I mean, we have a lot of folks that listen to the genealogy guys podcast and to Genealogy Connection and hopefully think maybe get some idea that, well, you know, this is fun. I could do this for a living, though, or, or do some aspect of it. Like you were talking about being in college and writing or. Or procrastinating from writing. But, you know, there's things that whatever people skill is. And so it's clear that you found that, as I said, that niche that wasn't. It wasn't filled by, by everyone and they're. We're not saying that nobody else does this, but this is still probably a low number compared to the number of writers and speakers and educators and, you know, the other kinds of things.
- [08:25]
B
And just general genealogy researchers.
- [08:28]
A
Yeah, the cl. The ones that take clients that do it. Exactly. That do it for people. And you're doing something that is while it's for people, it's not doing the re. Well, it's not doing what they need to do. And maybe let's get into that a bit. But I tell you what, because and we will take a little commercial break in just a minute, but let's talk about the what you can tell us about the National Archives. I mean, many of us have been, but a lot of newcomers have not, and particularly new genealogists. And tell us what you know about it in terms of just as an institution, the physical facilities that you have visited and kind of. Yeah, that. So.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So, Brian, give us that intro, if you don't mind, to the National Archives.
- [09:16]
B
Definitely. Yeah. So when I mentioned that I started going to the National Archives, the business that evolved from that is that I now go to the National Archives all the time and help people get these records that are there. Instead of ordering directly from the National Archives, they can order through my website and I can help them get the records. So in the process, I've learned a lot about the records that are there, how the National Archives whole process works. So to answer your question, the records that are at the National Archives, a lot of military records are there from in Washington, D.C. specifically, are there going to be the military records before World War I.
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A
Okay.
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B
World War I, and more recent, they're going to be in St. Louis instead of Washington, D.C. so I deal a lot with Civil war, War of 1812, Mexican War, Spanish American War, a lot of the Indian wars. All those kind of military records are there. There's going to be probably packets about each individual soldier from those wars, whether they're just maybe a small packet of service records. Some cases there will be bounty land information, pension files. There is, you name it, there's going to be a ton of stuff there about a lot of those soldiers.
- [10:34]
A
Let's before we move on, just for again, some of our listeners who don't know tell us about Bounty Land. What. What is it?
- [10:43]
B
And that's a good, that's a good question because I feel like before I started getting familiar with these records, I knew bounty land was a thing, but it I didn't really know how it worked. And I, I feel like that's probably one of the most underutilized record groups, but can also be one of the most valuable beneficial records you can get. For genealogy. Bounty land was issued to soldiers who were in wars before 1855. So Civil War soldiers did not qualify for bountyland, but Mexican War soldiers, War of 1812 soldiers, Revolutionary War soldiers, a lot of them got bounty land. So specifically for, like the war of 1812, they became available mostly in the 1850s. So there was a whole process they would need to follow. They had to apply for the Boundyland, and in these Boundyland applications, they had to prove they were eligible. How long did they serve? What did they do during the war? For genealogy, what's the most beneficial is if a widow is the one that is applying, because the widow was going to have to confirm that, yes, I was married to this soldier that was in the War of 1812. Yes, he did die. And you're going to get information like that as far as when the marriage took place. In many places, you may find the widow's maiden name, you may find information about when the soldier died. You may get affidavits from people who knew the family saying, I was at the wedding and I know they were married then. So you're, you're doing research on the fan club. People who knew this family, all those things could potentially be in that bounty land information.
- [12:31]
A
And again, for those who may, when we use the term fan club, we're talking about, and that was Elizabeth Schoen Mills who kind of popularized that term. That is the often the friends, the acquaintances, the neighbors of the ancestor that we care about. Each of our ancestors was surrounded by people. And so when we researched the fan club, we learned more about our own ancestors. So just wanted to make that a little bit clear for anybody who had not run across that term if they were new to genealogy. It's, it's getting out there. Yeah, a little bit. I try to be sensitive to it, you know. Right, okay. And, and so just to be clear, so these mostly men who served in these roles in the, in before the Civil War were receiving land that was sort of a grant of land that would become their land. Right. From the federal government, could be their.
- [13:24]
B
Land in many cases. It did not become their land, though, because. Well, that's, that's, that's what confuses a lot of people because they look at these records, and I have a War of 1812 soldier, and he was from Pennsylvania, and I know that he never moved anywhere else out of Pennsylvania. So this couldn't be his bounty land because it Says Iowa. He did not move to Iowa. So what's going on? It confuses people. And I mean, I totally get it because it's kind of out of nowhere of like, why is my ancestor showing up in Iowa?
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A
Right.
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B
So one thing to keep in mind is this happened in the 1850s. The boundy land became available in the 1850s. Soldiers from the War of 1812, if they were a young man in the War of 1812, by 1850, they may have been 60 years old. 60 years old. A lot of them don't want to pack up, move out to a new area, start all over again. They may not have even been able to afford to pack up and move out even if they wanted to.
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A
Right.
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B
So most soldiers never even stepped foot on the boundary land that they were granted. It got sold off right away.
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A
Yeah. So they were able to sell it, in other words, they were okay.
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B
Yeah.
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A
All right. Yeah. I'm just curious. Did any of them, though, like, either give it to one of their children, like a son who wanted to go west, or.
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B
Yeah. So the. The records at the National Archives, one of the record groups is the bounty land warrants. Those are the certificates kind of that would act as like a gift certificate that you could go redeem at a land office to claim your bounty land.
- [15:00]
A
Okay.
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B
So on these bounty land warrants on the backside, if the land got sold to somebody else, it would be documented on there. And these are all at the National Archives. These are one of the records that I work with.
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A
Gotcha.
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B
So you would be able to tell who bought this land, Maybe do some research. Research to find out, you know, who was this person? Was it a land speculator that just wanted to buy up cheap land? Was it a young man from the community that was willing to go out and settle out west? Or was it a family member?
- [15:32]
A
Right.
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B
So, you know, it could be any of those options that ended up with the bounty land.
- [15:38]
A
Gotcha. One more. Okay, so let's now go to. We've discussed what that one type of record that's there. And by the way, what. How much of any of this stuff has been digitized and how much hasn't been? Because. Okay, again, beginners might. You mentioned ancestry and being able to look at this stuff online. And we all use an. Well, a lot of us use ancestry. A lot of us use family Search myheritage, Find My Past, among other sites. And there's so much. We're spoiled rotten as modern genealogists that we don't have. We don't have. Well, we don't travel. A lot of us don't. Anywhere. Although we'll point out why you have to here. But then maybe that's the question is. So are you saying what. How much of this stuff is online and how much of it is still? I'm. Are we talking about microfilm or paper or.
- [16:32]
B
Yeah, well, some of both. And that's a good question because I feel like there is kind of a misconception that's out there that all these military records are online. One website that you didn't mention in that list just a minute ago.
- [16:45]
A
Sure.
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B
Is a site called Fold three.
- [16:47]
A
Oh, yeah, sure.
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B
F O L D three. Fold three.
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A
Right.
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B
Long Standcom is a site that is owned by Ancestry, but they focus mainly on military records.
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A
Right.
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B
So that's the site to go to if you're looking to see what's already going to be online when it comes to Boundyland. The Boundyland warrants, those certificates that I mentioned that would document who got the land. Those are not online. You have to get those directly from the National Archives.
- [17:16]
A
Got it.
- [17:17]
B
The applications themselves. The applications. That's where it's going to document, you know, the marriage or the death that I mentioned.
- [17:25]
A
Right.
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B
At the time that I'm saying this, none of those are online. However, they just recently started a digitization project. So I would say, if you're listening to this five years from now, go check on Online to see how many of those are online. Because I would say in the next several years, you're going to start seeing them show up in alphabetical order. Currently, they've pulled the A's, all the surname A's from the shelf to digitize them, and they're going to continue on in that process that way.
- [18:00]
A
I. Sorry to my listeners whose ancestors. Mr. Ziegler, you're going to have to wait a while.
- [18:06]
B
I know. Yeah. Same with the War of 1812 pension files. They've digitized most of those, but they're still in the middle of the S's. Are they now? That's all that is online. I think they've probably digitized more than that, but for whatever reason, they have not uploaded them yet.
- [18:25]
A
I've made them upload. Yeah. That project. And I remember when they first announced that project. It is. It's had its fits and starts, it's had some ups and downs and whatever. We won't get into all that. Exactly. But yes, it's. Yeah. Those of us who were saying, oh, well, okay. My ancestor does start with a B. That's not Too bad. But those who were farther in the Alphabet were gritting their teeth. Yeah, that wasn't much fun.
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B
Yeah, just hang tight. And here's a cool thing about the War of 1812 pensions, that when they raised the money to do those, it was with the understanding that they were not allowed to charge for access.
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A
Right.
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B
So records that are online on sites like Fold3, you got to pay to look at them. But the pensions, even if you don't have a membership, you can still, you.
- [19:11]
A
Can see those charge. Cool. All right. And again, you know, genealogists have to realize there. And I'm not, I'm not here to say you can't, you don't spend any money. Genealogy can be as expensive as you'd like it to be or not, but there's a lot of free stuff, so you should find out what's free and what's not. Let's, let's get into the pensions for a minute. I want to. And then we're going to probably take our commercial break. So there were War of 1812 pension files and then Civil War pensions as well, correct?
- [19:45]
B
Yes.
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A
And who was applying for these pensions?
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B
Well, it could be, in most cases, it's going to be the soldier.
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A
Okay.
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B
It's in many cases, once the soldier was gone, the widows could be eligible to apply for a pension on their behalf if they had left young children behind, like under the age of 16. In the case of a Union Civil War soldier, children under the age of 16 could apply for pensions on behalf of their father.
- [20:17]
A
Okay.
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B
If it was a young soldier, not even necessarily a young soldier, but a soldier who was maybe unmarried that died in the war, if they could prove that the parents were financially dependent on that soldier, you might see a parent applying for a pension.
- [20:37]
A
Okay. One story I like to share, and I have shared it on earlier podcasts, probably was I interviewed many some years ago now. It's been a while. Bernice Bennett, who's a citizen archivist. Yeah. She, she goes and does a lot of cool stuff and she knows a lot of people who do that. They go and they help the professional archivists with their work and organizing these packets. And she, they were going through a lot of the Civil War widows packets and trying to make some sense out of them and get them all into some usable order. And as you said yourself, Brian, that people where some of the stuff in the pension files were or in the bounty file, but the pension files were. Yeah. Things like proving marriage. 1. We've heard stories that sometimes women tore out the record out of their family Bible of the. Of the marriage to put in the. You've seen those? Yeah, I've seen those.
- [21:36]
B
Yep.
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A
And. And as you said, people that knew them, people that knew the soldier, knew the wife, knew who this person was, they would write that support letter. And Bernice's. The story I love to hear is she said one of the archivists, the citizen archivists, was going through and stumbled on a letter and took it over to the professional archivist and said, this support letter is written by Walt Whitman.
- [22:02]
B
Oh, wow.
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A
And the archivist had never. That was a signed letter by Walt Whitman that the archives didn't even know they had. So. Yeah, So I don't know that. Yeah, that you're going to have too many famous people in your support files. But you never know. I guess that's the point.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Who. Who people are.
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B
I've ran across. Well, not me personally, but I was there the day that somebody requested a Civil War pension file. And you mentioned pages from the family Bible. Yeah, they went above and beyond that. It was the actual family Bible, the whole Bible. It was, but it was not like the big 12 inch by whatever that you normally see. It was more like a pocket size Bible that someone carried.
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A
Sure.
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B
But it had all that family information in there.
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A
Cool.
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B
They mailed that entire Bible in and it was still in that pension file.
- [22:54]
A
Wow. Okay, So, I mean, the point of all this is that you never know what you're gonna get. It's kind of crazy. Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get more into what Brian does for people, and we're going to get into some of the, and, and even how people use this information. We're going to take a commercial break and so just keep listening to us, but listen to our, our ads if you will, and stay with us. The holiday season is here and Roots Magic hasn't forgotten. Are you looking for a gift that will really bring the family together? Then give the gift of software that unites families. Save up to 50% on RootsMagic software, including Personal Historian 3, Family Atlas and New RootsMagic 10 through Wednesday, December 25, 2024. Use the code HOLIDAY2024 to receive your discount. There is no limit on the number of discounted copies you can buy during this limited time offer. That means only $24.95 for a new RootsMagic 10 license, only $19.95 for Personal Historian 3, and only $19.95 for Family Atlas. But don't delay you have until Wednesday, December 25th to use code HOLIDAY2024 to receive these discounts. It can be interesting to read the stories of our ancestors, but nothing makes more impact than images. Whether it's an old family photo or a digital copy of a faded genealogical document, these images make it possible for us to be taken back in time to our family's past. Unfortunately, just as memories fade over time, so do photos and documents. But you can bring them back to life with vividpix Restore software. Restore uses patented artificial intelligence to give you the ability to improve the quality of your scanned images with just a single click. And you can use Restore to add metadata to the digital image to help describe who is in the photo and who, where and when it was taken. I could go on, but why not try it out for yourself for free? Go to vivid-pics.com restore and click the free trial button for either Windows or Mac Os. Welcome back. You're listening to the Genealogy Connection with my guest Brian Reinhardt of CivilWarRecords.com Although we've been talking about the fact that there's all kinds of records, military records, many which have never been digitized, that are at the national archives in Washington, D.C. a place that Brian spends a lot of time at and picking up all this stuff. I guess the next thing I want to just say before we get into exactly what you do for people maybe is, you know, what's. How do you recommend to people who are working on their own families? How do they get to the point, you know, what. What should they have been doing? What should they have already found out before? Maybe they even hire you or. Or themselves go to D.C. if that's what they want to do. I mean, it's like, you know, depending on the time of year and it could be a fun place.
- [26:09]
B
Exactly.
- [26:11]
A
What, what, what should. Maybe that's the question. What should a genealogist prepare for themselves and before they are right, gonna reach out to you and say, here's what I would like you to do for me. So can you give some advice?
- [26:24]
B
Sure. Yeah. So I get people who contact me at all different points along that way. So if you're asking me ideally, what would be the best thing I would say ideally would be if, you know, let's say exam. For example, we're gonna talk Civil War. Okay, let's say that, you know, that you have a Civil War soldier and.
- [26:43]
A
Let me interrupt only just to ask, are we talking both Union and Confederate?
- [26:48]
B
Okay, good question. Because for the most part, the National Archives Is only going to have Union records. Confederate records do exist. The service records for Confederate soldiers are at the national archives, but they've also all been digitized and put online.
- [27:07]
A
Okay.
- [27:07]
B
So you don't need to go to the national archives or contact me to get those, because you can get those online. Confederate pensions exist, but those are held at the individual state archives, not the national archives. So you can still track those down. Sure, but I don't really work with those because those are not at the national archives.
- [27:26]
A
No, but I just want that to be clear. As we talk about civil war records, what we're primarily talking about here is. Okay. All right. Thanks, Brad. Just want to make that clear. So Union records. Union civil.
- [27:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. So ideally, it would be nice if you knew that you had a Union civil war soldier, if you know the regiment that the soldier was in, and if you even want the next step. And if you are actually found a pension index card for your soldier online, you can get those on Ancestry Fold 3 or FamilySearch. If you have those. That would be the ideal scenario. However, I get people who contact me all the time who don't have that information, and we can still work with you on it and try to figure out if you know the regiment number. I can take it from there and find the records based on the regiment number. But if you don't know the regiment number, as long as it's not like John Smith, you know, usually I can work with you and try to help you figure that out too.
- [28:28]
A
Okay, so imagine you've got an ancestor that you think might have served in the military as a union soldier. You know, where they lived, what state they lived in, maybe. And, you know, but that's about. Maybe all you know. You don't know if they did serve, and if they did serve, when did they join and where did they serve from? And as you got to before, what regiment and all that other nice detailed stuff. Where would I discover all those things?
- [29:00]
B
When people contact me with that scenario, a lot of times what I find out is they have that information. They just don't realize they have it. So when I. When people come to me at that scenario, one of the questions I will ask them is, how do. How do you know that he was in the civil war? Because. And their answer might be, oh, I've got a discharge paper or something like that. I'm like, okay, let's look at that paper. It might actually say on there more information about him. But let's say that you really don't have any maybe it's just a family story that he was in the war. There are resources such as a lot of times obituaries will give information like that. Maybe a gravestone will be engraved right on the stone, the regiment number, if your soldier was alive in 1890. There was an 1890 veteran census that was taken. Even though most of the federal census was destroyed in the fire in 1890, a lot of this veterans census still survives. If you can find him on there, it should tell the regiment number. If none of that gives the information that you need, sometimes you can look. If it's a unique name, we could just look in the database and say, oh, there's only one man with that name from Michigan. We're going to play the odds, and maybe this is him.
- [30:23]
A
Sure.
- [30:23]
B
Maybe we can find a pension index card that will list the name of the widow that applied and we can match that and say, you know, did your soldier have a widow named Julia? Because she's the one that applied. And there are ways to work with that.
- [30:38]
A
Brian, you mentioned obituaries. Clearly, there's that and gravestones. They're so useful for any of those things that you've brought up. But I'm actually thinking, what about reunions?
- [30:53]
B
Oh, yeah.
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A
So maybe the newspaper covered a reunion and listed who all attended or something.
- [31:00]
B
Yeah, yeah. Obviously the list that I gave was not an exhaustive. No, no, no.
- [31:04]
A
I know we're not going to be able to do that, but I'm just thinking reunions Gar.
- [31:08]
B
Fight the grand army of the Republic, which was. Was a social organization after the war. Newspaper stories. There's a lot of ways that you may be able to find a mention of your soldier with the regiment number.
- [31:21]
A
What about physical things? You. I mean, what about any. Was there anything in terms of, like, metals or anything that a person might have inherited that would. Those. What. What would I. Yeah, I don't know what they would be on those or what would be typical that might point to. Well, at least point to military service, I suppose.
- [31:41]
B
But medals for the, like, Civil War period was. They were pretty rare. Okay, you might.
- [31:47]
A
Okay.
- [31:48]
B
Purple Heart didn't. Didn't exist. The only medal that I'm really aware of would have been a Medal of Honor, and those are pretty rare. Okay, but let's say that you really do have a medal. Medal of Honor. I mean, if you've got that, then I could probably find them because it's going to be easy to narrow down. Just let's look at the list of the Medal of Honor recipients.
- [32:08]
A
Gotcha. Gotcha okay. All right. Well, as I said, I, I think some people are in that situation. Like you said, there's a family story, but there's not much else yet. And you're, you've pointed to a number of really cool things you've already said. You, you, your customers often are in different points of their research and therefore some are farther along than others. And you can help steer the early stages for people that need to go a little further. And like you said, if it's John Smith, that's going to take a lot more work than if it's somebody. Yeah. Okay. So what, what are you going to be able to do for the, the folks? What, what do you offer in terms of, I mean, you've described the different kinds of records. Maybe you can talk about what you get. How long does it take? What's it going to cost typically, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What, what can you share about this process?
- [33:08]
B
Okay, good question. So the types of records we already mentioned something about, we mentioned a little bit about the different records. Let's, for Civil War soldiers. We'll, we'll, we'll focus on that again. Sure. The three main record groups that I look at to see if there are available for these soldiers. One would be the Civil War pension file, the compiled military service records. And there's another group called the carded medical records that if a soldier was ever hospitalized during the war, there should be a little write up about when, where and why he was hospitalized. Just a little one, one, one card. It's not going to give you a ton of detail, but going to help tell the story about your ancestors military story.
- [33:53]
A
Right.
- [33:54]
B
So those are the three record groups that I look at to see if they exist for the soldier, for your particular soldier. If they exist, the pension file is going to be probably the best one to get. Those are big files, average size, roughly about 100 pages.
- [34:11]
A
Wow.
- [34:12]
B
Those are bigger than a lot of people realize. I send these off to people and they're like, I, there's way more here than I thought. And yeah, a hundred is an average. It's not unusual to have 200 page files. It's the biggest one I've ever seen, was over a thousand pages and that's by far the biggest I've seen. But I mean it happens and it's going to be full of information about potentially medical records about your soldier, things he was dealing with before, I'm sorry, during and after the war. You may find information there about the family, about where the soldier was born, maybe a previous residence that you didn't know about, a previous marriage you didn't already know about, information about the widow that you do know about, maybe information about his children, things that happened to him during the war. All kinds of really good stuff in that pension file, the compiled military service records. Almost every soldier has a set of service records. They're long rectangular cards. You may have seen them online for some soldiers already, those are going to tell almost month by month. Usually it's every other month where they were, what they were doing, were they promoted or transferred, did they desert, were they court martialed, were they killed, were they taken prisoner. All those kind of things are documented in there.
- [35:38]
A
And I was going to ask you that. Are there special records for prisoner of war or is that just incorporated in the service record or in other records? Both. Okay.
- [35:48]
B
There are some ledgers and some various records that may have the names of all these soldiers. There's not necessarily going to be a packet made up about this particular soldier who was in this prison camp.
- [35:59]
A
Okay.
- [36:00]
B
But in those service records I mentioned, there should be documentation of an overview of when he was captured, where he was captured, where he was held, and the final status, whether he was. Did he die in the prison camp, did he get exchanged, was he paroled, what date did it happen? Those. That, that should be detailed in the service records.
- [36:21]
A
Okay. All right, let's. Let's talk about some unique things. I mean, you've been doing this now for some number of years.
- [36:31]
B
Yeah, it's going on seven years now.
- [36:34]
A
Okay. And yeah, we've talked about. Although you've said there were this unusual records that were a lot larger than the typical. Are there unusual things you have discovered? I mean, are there things, unique documents or just things like. Oh my. I was expecting that. Or.
- [36:53]
B
Oh yeah, oh, yeah, that's, that's part of the fun of what, what, what I do is that I get to hands on with these records and see what's in there. And you know that quote from Forrest Gump where life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. That's what I, that's what I tell people with these pensions, you never know what, what you're going to find when you open them. It's. There are some things that you will find in pretty much every pension file. The basic application, the overview. But then you get those one of a kind documents that are in there that it's just like, wow, this is so cool. You may find. Well, I Mentioned earlier, that Bible that.
- [37:31]
A
Was in a. Yeah, a whole Bible. Yeah.
- [37:33]
B
Yeah. That's the first and only time I've ever been aware of something like that. But that was in one of them.
- [37:39]
A
Wow.
- [37:39]
B
I found in a pension file, like an entire family group sheet that was written back in the 1800s.
- [37:47]
A
Really?
- [37:48]
B
Yeah. It was this colorful certificate of the names and birth dates of the mother and father. The father was the one that was a soldier. All the children, their dates of birth, when they died. In the pension file that was in there, you may find letters that were written during the war to. Especially in the case if it was like a mother or a father applying for a pension, they may include letters that their son wrote to them to document. This really was my son. And to document that he was helping to financially support us during the war by sending money home. He would include it in the letters.
- [38:32]
A
Right.
- [38:32]
B
So you get these really amazing details about what camp life was like or, you know, where they were, what he was doing or how he was feeling. And he may write notes in there about some of the neighborhood boys that he knew of, like, so and so was killed the other day, or he's sick in the hospital. And you just get these really interesting, sometimes sad details. I found. Just last week, I found a discharge certificate from a soldier who was only 13 years old.
- [39:04]
A
Really?
- [39:05]
B
Yes. Which was unusual. Boys that age didn't enlist very often at all. They weren't really allowed to, but parent must have agreed to it. He was a musician, which was what these young soldiers most of the time, if they were there, that's what they did. He was 13, but it said he enlisted 15 months earlier. So this boy was only 11 or 12 when he enlisted. And the military was discharging him, saying that he was unaware of the difficulties of camp life and just basically saying, this isn't working out. We gotta send him home. But you just find interesting things like that in these pension files.
- [39:44]
A
So. Yeah. So how often are you going either yourself. Do you have other people getting records for you, too? Is that.
- [39:52]
B
Yes, yes, we have. I'm there at least one or two weeks, a month.
- [39:59]
A
Okay.
- [39:59]
B
Personally, I have. I'm the one that answers all the emails, so sometimes I have to stay home and handle the administrative stuff of it, too. But. Yeah, but we also have a team of people. I have an assistant on site that's there every single week working on scanning some of these records. So we're there. Were there every week.
- [40:20]
A
In terms of. I. I'm interested in. Well, again, particularly if you're dealing with a John Smith, or if you're dealing with even an unusual name that you're not finding. I mean, what. What are your struggles as far as not finding the record you hope to find? I mean, does that happen in. I mean, I assume it has to happen in some sense, but yes, usually.
- [40:47]
B
So there are indexes for a lot of these records that are online. And so usually by the time I go to the archives, I have a good idea of whether or not that record is going to be there because I have to look in the indexes first. And so it could be a challenge with the common name. Sometimes it's requesting several John Smiths from the same state and the same regiment to figure out which one is him. Mm. But you. I don't know if there are real. Don't know how to answer that question. Sorry.
- [41:22]
A
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just saying that, you know, we all hope to find our ancestors and find all the records that pertain to our ancestors, but I guess I'm just saying, do we need to make people aware that sometimes we just can't find what we want?
- [41:40]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, sometimes there is just not a pension file at all.
- [41:46]
A
Yeah.
- [41:46]
B
Maybe the soldier didn't qualify for a pension. If the soldier left the military on bad terms, right? Deserted, dishonorably discharged, court martialed, they weren't going to be eligible for a pension later in life. So in those cases, it's not a matter of whether or not we could find the record. It just doesn't even exist. Right. There's nothing there to even be found. But again, we can look in the indexes and know beforehand whether or not he's in the index.
- [42:16]
A
Well, you just also said something, and we. We tell genealogists this don't do genealogy if you're not willing to encounter things you might not have wanted to know, but you know, you're gonna. And it sounds like with your military, this, your ancestors who were in the military, like you said, maybe you're going to discover, like you said, they deserted or they were court martialed or something. In other words, there could. Could be cases where things were not that the store, whatever the family story is, maybe it didn't turn out the reality was not as good.
- [42:52]
B
Yes, but let's be honest, because when you tell stories to your family, who are maybe just kind of casually interested in your genealogy, they want to know the really heroic story or they want to know about the criminal in the family.
- [43:05]
A
The black sheep.
- [43:07]
B
Yeah, they want to know about the guy that deserted in the war and ran off. And I mean, yeah, it may not be the most honorable story, but it can make for a good story.
- [43:17]
A
Well, and enough time has gone by that it's not. It's not. Doesn't reflect on anybody who's still with us.
- [43:25]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [43:26]
A
Yeah, good point. And I guess that's another thing we should tell our listeners is that whether, you know, you will hear, if you, if you ask for records, you will get the good, the bad and the ugly. And, and that's. That's okay because like you said, the story is the story. And what's more important, getting the story is important, so.
- [43:48]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [43:49]
A
All right. We're near the end of our time and Brian, I just wanted to know, was there any other topic or thing related to this that you wanted to. To bring up or share? Clearly, we've, we've talked. Your website is civilwarrecords.com so we should mention that. I guess we should mention maybe a little bit of a special for our listeners.
- [44:12]
B
Yeah, yeah. You had actually asked a couple minutes ago about an overview of what I do, including pricing, and I, I forgot to answer.
- [44:20]
A
No, that's okay. Now's a good time, if you would like.
- [44:24]
B
Yeah. So one advantage of hiring someone like me to go get these records for you is that my rates are cheaper than if you ordered these directly from the National Archives and certainly cheaper than.
- [44:37]
A
If you traveled to the D.C. and.
- [44:39]
B
Spent overnight in a lot of cases. Exactly. Yes. You don't have to fight the traffic. You don't have to figure out the whole process of the National Archives. You can hire someone like me who knows the whole system.
- [44:49]
A
Yeah. Good.
- [44:50]
B
You're going to get them back quicker than if you'd order them from the Archives.
- [44:53]
A
Right.
- [44:54]
B
Plus you get full color scans of all of them as opposed to the black and white copies.
- [44:59]
A
Gotcha.
- [45:00]
B
My rates are all roughly about 20% cheaper than if you had ordered directly from the National Archives.
- [45:06]
A
Good to know.
- [45:06]
B
So there is a discount already built in to what I do. But yeah. As far as any kind of specials or anything for your listeners we can use, I'll set up a discount code.
- [45:18]
A
We won't tell you now. It's going to be in the show notes when this is published, we'll tell people. So that's going to make people go look at the show notes and let's do that and get that.
- [45:27]
B
So.
- [45:27]
A
And it'll be. And we'll tell people in the show notes how long it's good for. So it's going to be, you know, temporary. So.
- [45:34]
B
Yeah, that works. Yep, let's do that. So, okay, go to the show notes. You can get some information about a temporary special that you can get on top of the already discounted rates that we do.
- [45:45]
A
Sounds good. And we'll of course, have in the show notes there'll be a link to the website, Brian's website. Brian, anything else before we end this particular episode that you wanted to.
- [45:57]
B
I would know, but I would just say if you are on the fence about whether or not you want to learn more about your military ancestors, I would say go for it, because there are really some amazing stories that you can find in here, whether you're looking for information about your genealogy or just kind of an overview of what your soldier did.
- [46:19]
A
Yeah.
- [46:20]
B
I can't promise anything that'll be in these records, but there's a good chance you may find information about both of those aspects, the genealogy and the history about your Civil War ancestor.
- [46:32]
A
Sounds good. Brian Reinhardt of CivilWarRecords.com thanks for being a guest on Genealogy Connection. It's been fun talking with you about this.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah. Thanks again for having me out. I enjoyed it.
- [47:06]
A
Sam.