The Civil War “Soldiers and Sailors” system is no longer supported.
Researchers have long relied on the National Park Service’s online “Soldiers and Sailors Database” to search for Civil War ancestors. Many of those same researchers have discovered, however, that there are significant problems with that system and the search results are often unreliable. Now the NPS has officially abandoned the effort to resolve those problems
Documenting a Medal of Honor
The National Archives (NARA) holds a file for each recipient of the Medal of Honor. The file typically contains the soldier’s original nomination, testimonials of witnesses, correspondence with the veteran, and other related documents. We scanned the contents of such a file yesterday and it contained some fascinating details. But first a little history of
When Confederate Service Records are Unreadable or Incomplete
Compiled Military Service Records (CMSRs) for Confederate soldiers are online, but many of the images are so faint that they are unreadable. In other cases, some pages seem to be missing from those online records. In either case, there is a solution that is not well known. All surviving Confederate CMSRs were digitized by Fold3
Why did some soldiers have aliases?
A researcher asked, “Why did some soldiers have aliases?” There is a long list of possible answers.
Visiting the National Archives in D.C.?
Yes, we’re in business to copy records for you from the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) but we encourage you to go to NARA yourself instead if that is practical. There’s nothing like getting your own hands on your ancestors’ original documents! Following is our advice if you are planning a trip to NARA
