Since I introduced a lot of information about Confederate prisoners of war in my last blog post, it seemed appropriate to mention what material we also have available relating to Union POWs held in Confederate military prisons.  As you may imagine, records about Confederate prison camps are not nearly as complete as those for Union [...]

Today’s post is brought to you by Constance Potter, Archivist in the Archives I Research Support Branch, and Jennifer Dryer of Archives II, who is currently cross-training at Archives I. The release of the 1940 population census schedules is approaching! It will be released digitally on April 2, 2012. You will be able to access [...]

If you are anything like me, you would love to volunteer more, but you don’t feel you have enough time to make a commitment. Luckily, these days, anyone with a computer and internet access can easily participate in online volunteer projects. An upcoming public program at the National Archives will look at three projects where [...]

Continuing the discussion of Confederate records, another major portion of material in Record Group 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records, includes records about Confederate prisoners of war.  Of particular note, these are actually records created by Union military prisons, compiled or maintained by the Office of the Commissary General of Prisoners in the U.S. War [...]

Confederate records that survived the Civil War cover a variety of aspects and functions of both the Confederate government and its armed forces.  One of the major components of the War Department Collection of Confederate Records includes records of various military hospitals that were established in several Southern states during the war.  Administered by the Confederate [...]

Are you a genealogy blogger?  Do you have questions for NARA, whether it be about blogging or records?  Then we have the event for you!  This year at the 7th Annual Genealogy Fair, The National Archives will be hosting a meet-up to bring together genealogist bloggers and spark some good conversation about the records you [...]

Are you your family’s detective?  Have you always wanted to learn more about your family tree?  Join us as we host the 7th Annual Genealogy Fair on April 20-21, 2011, and highlight the diversity of Federal records available for family history research. National Archives’ staff members, historians, and genealogy professionals will lead this year’s workshops [...]

Since we are about to embark on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War–various activities commemorating events leading up to the war have already taken place around the country since January–it seems useful to highlight some of the major records we have available at the National Archives.  Let’s start with an overview of Confederate records.  [...]

Today’s Family Tree Friday is brought to you by Constance Potter, Archivist in the Archives I Research Support Branch. The 1940 census opens on April 2, 2012. For the first time, the census will be released digitally, not on microfilm. As with other censuses, this one reflects the previous decade of the 1930s and the [...]

Have you ever looked at a Civil War pension file and wondered, what does this all REALLY mean? More specifically, have you ever tried to figure out what each document or slip of paper actually was, where it came from, and what relevance it had to the file as a whole?  Believe it or not, [...]