Since the beginning of the Family Tree Friday blog, we’ve talked a lot about pension records and indexes, but I’m not too sure we’ve ever mentioned or even defined that other essential and related benefit of military service, the bounty land warrant!  Pensions, of course, have been granted to veterans since the end of the [...]

Most people who research information about relatives or ancestors who were Federal employees probably don’t make enough use of government publications.  So, it might interest you to know that the Federal Government actually produced its own employee directory, the Official Register of the United States, which spans the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries (1817-1959).  [...]

Do you have the opening of the 1940 Census on April 2, 2012 marked on your calendar?  We do here at the National Archives.  For past Census releases we provided access to the Census on microfilm.  For the 1940 Census we will be providing free online access.  You’ll be able to search on the internet using [...]

We’re just over halfway through this summer’s “I Found it in the National Archives” contest and have enjoyed reading the stories that have come in so far! From Rebecca Lawrence-Weden’s tale of a lighthouse, a walnut and the Great War to Wendy Griswold’s experience shedding some light on a 106-year-old family tragedy, the determination and [...]

When you consider the vast holdings of federal records at the National Archives, what usually jumps to mind are such mainstay documents as Civil War pensions and service records, immigration passenger manifests, Congressional petitions and memorials, or homestead applications.  Certainly, the Charters of Freedom—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—figure prominently [...]

NARA is in the very early stages of developing a process for electronically requesting records (i.e., an online pull slip). We are currently concentrating on requirements. We invite you to attend one or both of two meetings to discuss what requirements and features you’d like to see for doing records requests electronically.  Project director Rich Tomlinson will brief [...]

This week’s post comes to you from guest blogger Jennifer Dryer, who works in the National Declassification Center at the National Archives.  Jennifer is completing a cross-training assignment with the Archives I Research Support Branch, where she has been working on reference relating to the upcoming 1940 Census release.  Some questions on the 1940 census [...]

Today’s post is brought to you by Claire Prechtel-Kluskens, Archivist in the Archives I Research Support Branch. June 18, 2011 marks the 199th anniversary of the beginning of the War of 1812. On June 18, 1812, in Washington, DC, the U.S. Congress declared war against Great Britain. On about the same date, nearly 3,400 miles [...]

As a way to tie together all the Confederate prisoner of war records that we’ve discussed over the last several weeks, I thought you might want to know about a specific record the War Department compiled in the early 20th century to document all of the Confederate POWs who died in Federal custody during the [...]

When you signed up as a researcher at the National Archives, what did our staff pull out of the stacks for you? Was it a photo of your great-grandfather with the Secretary of War as he received a commendation? Or did you find a telegraph your favorite president sent at the height of his career? [...]