Preserving Texas' Civil War Records

The theme for Archives Month in Texas is about preserving Civil War records in Texas. While we do not have any Civil War records here at the Dick Smith Library we do have books in the Local History Room that can help you research the Civil War in Texas and there are several websites you can search for records. We do have in the Local History Room Index to Applications for Texas Confederate Pensions. The book is organized into three sections: 1. Index to Approved Pension Applications; 2. Index to Residents of the Confederate home and the Confederate Woman's Home; 3. Index to Rejected Pension Applications. The listings are alphabetical and give the application number and county of residence. The Local History Room also has several books on Texas units that served in the Confederate forces. The Texas Library and Archives Commission has a searchable database of Confederate Pension Applications located here: https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/apps/arc/pensions/ The site is searchable by name or application number and the search can be limited by county. None of the pension applications are digitized, so you would have to order copies of the application from the archives. The State Archives also has a Confederate Indigent Families List, this was aid paid to families of those serving in the Confederate forces. Instructions on using the list can be found here:
https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/cif/index.html

At the federal level the National Archives is working on digitizing the 1.28 million case files from the families of deceased Civil War Union soldiers. An excellent short video about the project with views of some of the records is at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWV9ObQUDRc&feature=youtu.be
The pension records are online at http://www.fold3.com/
To read the interesting story of one woman's attempt to keep her widow's pension see this article written by one of the volunteers working on the project: http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=10707
The National park Service has an excellent Civil War website: http://www.nps.gov/civilwar/index.htm One of my favorite features is the "Find a Person" search box at the bottom of the page. This allows you to search the 6.3 million records in the soldiers and sailors database. The database is searchable by name, unit, state, battle, and keyword to name a few of the available search terms. This does link to digitized records. information is also given for the units such as when and where they were formed, sometimes even listing in which county they were formed. Members of the units are also listed and the battles the unit fought.

Hopefully these sources will help you get started on your own research.

Looking for my Grandfather

In my last entry, I talked about how to arrange and preserve your family archives. This time I will give you some sources for finding out more about your family. These are by no means all of the resources available to those researching their family. For information about ancestors who fought in the Civil War a good starting place is the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/index.html . Here you can find information about what unit they were in and information on the unit. The Texas General Land Office Searchable Texas Land Grant Database allows you to see if family members have received a Texas land grant. The grants in the database go back to the Texas Republic. http://www.glo.state.tx.us/archives/landgrant.html

The Texas State Archives and Library Commission genealogy page at: http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/genfirst.html offers links to several searchable databases. One of those that are helpful to genealogists is the County Records on Microfilm http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/local/index.html The majority of the counties in Texas have had their records microfilmed. The microfilm is held at various depositories throughout the state and can be borrowed through Inter Library Loan (ILL), if you cannot visit the repository. Just click on the link above for a list of counties, and then click on the county you are interested in for a list of the records and where the microfilm is held. When requesting microfilm through ILL you need to provide the name of the county, the roll number, and the title of the roll.

Other databases at the Texas State archives site are listed below:

• Index to Confederate pension applications http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/pensions/index.php
• Confederate Indigent families lists (1863-1865) http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/cif/index.html
• Index to Republic Claims http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/repclaims/index.php
• Index to Texas Adjutant General Service Records 1836-1935 National Archives and Records Administration http://www.archives.gov/ has many helpful links for genealogical researchers and those requesting military records of family members.

There are too many links to list in this brief blog, but I will mention a few. In the most requested box on the home page listed above are links to military records where a person can request a copy of the DD Form 214 report of Separation and other records electronically, by fax, or mail. Clicking on the genealogy/getting started link takes you to a wealth sources at the National Archives many of which are searchable online including the Dawes Rolls Index and Final Roll for those researching their Native American ancestry.

Hope these tips will help you and if you have any questions contact me at: spurr@tarleton.edu