If you had the opportunity to attend NARA’s 6th Annual Genealogy Fair last month, visitors were treated to a variety of lectures on the theme of “The World of Genealogy.”  The theme highlighted the ethnic diversity that is documented in specific federal records, whether they are newspapers published by Japanese-Americans through the War Relocation Authority during [...]

My last few posts have explored the compiled military service records (CMSRs) at the National Archives, highlighting in particular the extra information found in the records, especially the personal papers relating to individual soldiers such as enlistment and discharge forms, casualty sheets, or final statements of service.  One last point to make is that personal [...]

In my last blog post I explained how to decipher the information contained on a volunteer soldier’s compiled military service record envelope or “jacket.”  Those jackets also indicate whether or not the service record includes any personal papers.  Personal papers are individual documents such as an original enlistment paper, a casualty sheet, discharge certificate, or [...]

Compiled military service records at the National Archives for the Revolutionary War (1775-1783) through the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902) are filed in separate envelopes or jackets that contain basic information about the soldier.  The example shown here for my ancestor Adam Dale (his surname is actually DEAL, which shows how spelling mistakes/variations can find their way [...]

Immigration records at the National Archives contain more than just information about passengers traveling into the United States from foreign ports.  Quite often they also include accompanying lists of crewmen, both American and foreign-born, who worked on the vessels.  These lists exist because of an early 19th-century law that required the masters of American vessels [...]

Since February is Black History Month, it seems appropriate to mention some of the lesser-known records that are available for African American research at the National Archives.  Among those are vessel manifests that document the antebellum domestic slave trade.  Even though Congress outlawed the slave trade in 1807, the law of course did not prohibit [...]

American citizens have always had the right under the U.S. Constitution to petition Congress directly to redress specific grievances or recoup financial losses resulting from government actions (such as private property damaged by the Union Army during the Civil War).  In the 19th century, Americans commonly exercised this right, sending hundreds of thousands of private claims to [...]

In my previous blog I mentioned compiled military service records for volunteer soldiers.  While CMSRs are generally recognized as the official record of a volunteer’s military career, did you know they were NOT created at the time the soldier served?  The War Department first created compiled service records in the early 1890s to help verify military [...]

Most people have a relative or ancestor who either served in the military or fought during a specific war.  Many researchers are unaware, however, that a significant distinction exists between volunteer soldiers and Regular soldiers, and that the two types of service are documented differently.  Volunteers (citizen soldiers) were enlisted to serve during specific wars [...]

Have you ever had an immigrant ancestor whose name appeared to change after they came to America?  It was a very common occurrence, but the popular perception is that U.S. immigration officials deliberately changed a person’s name if they couldn’t understand the verbal information relayed to them by the immigrant.  In fact, this is one [...]