GOPHER RECORDS

I attended a genealogy conference this year and asked where the best place to request Civil War pension files from, the National Archives or FOLD3? I was told by the speaker to instead request them from gopherrecords because it would be faster and cheaper than ordering from the National Archives and I’d get the widow’s file also which I wouldn’t get from FOLD3. Gopherrecords not only offered the pension files but also medical and service records as well. I requested the service, medical and pension records for my Civil War Ancestor and 4 other family members, one of them being his brother. I was able to bundle these records, making it even cheaper to order them all at once from gopherrecords. I did this in early July 2023. The estimated date of delivery for these records was only 20 days after I requested them. I couldn’t believe I’d get them so quick. I received confirmation of my order and other emails to confirm exactly which records were my ancestors. I was amazed that Gopherrecords was able to find these records, scan them and send them to me by the date they originally promised. (The only problem was they went to my junk mail.) Once I realized that, I had over 1,000 pages of images to go through. My ancestors pension file was over 200 pages and his brother’s was also large. in his brother’s pension file was a copy of the family bible! I didn’t have these exact birth dates before and I had only estimated their birth’s from their ages at death or census records. I’m hoping that now knowing the exact date my ancestor’s father was born will help me find his birth in Ireland records leading to his parents names as well.
I also found a sibling in the pension records that I had assumed died young because he disappeared from records in the area. Now I have another sibling to research that might yield more clues as to my ancestors origin in Ireland. I have only gone through a fraction of the pages sent to me so far but I’m sure I’ll find other treasures in the records also. These records are a gold mine of informaiton and everyone should request their Civil War pension files from gopherrecords for quick service. The records come in pdf format and can be downloaded. The quality of the images are excellent and easy to read. Thank you gopherrecords! I wish I ordered these years ago and I’m sure I’ll be ordering more records from them in the future. I’m so glad I was told at the genealogy conference to order my pension records from them.