{"id":2179,"date":"2021-09-23T09:59:59","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T16:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2021-09-23T09:59:59","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T16:59:59","slug":"genealogical-jackpot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/?p=2179","title":{"rendered":"Genealogical Jackpot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/Genealogists keep an ancestor’s age in mind when looking for records. A standard question is whether a man was eligible to have served in one of our nation’s wars. If so, did he apply for a pension?\n<\/p>\n

Pension application files can be rich sources of genealogical information. People wanted those pensions. They provided every document they could to strengthen their case. The government saved it all.\n<\/p>\n

I had never been lucky enough to find one of these for any of my family members, until now. Last week I located an application filed by Bridget Ryan, widow of my second great-grandfather Daniel Ryan (1829-1863).\n<\/p>\n

Daniel enlisted for a three-year term of service in the Union Army from Illinois in 1861. He died in Louisiana two years later from disease.\n<\/p>\n

The Fold 3 subscription database has digitized copies of Civil War pension applications, and I was able to find Bridget’s. It is 76 pages long, due to some controversy.\n<\/p>\n

The packet is chock-full of interesting documents:\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Certificates for Daniel’s marriages to each of his two wives.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Catholic priest affidavits attesting to the baptisms of Daniel’s sons with each of the wives.\n<\/li>\n
  3. Verification of Daniel’s military service from the U. S. Adjutant General office.\n<\/li>\n
  4. Verification of Daniel’s death from the U. S. Surgeon General office.\n<\/li>\n
  5. Guardianship information for the first son.\n<\/li>\n
  6. Paperwork from the first son contesting the right of the widow and second son to receive a pension.\n<\/li>\n
  7. Place of residence for the widow and the first son.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It would have taken a long time to collect these documents individually. Finding all of them in one convenient place saved me a lot of time.\n<\/p>\n

    Daniel suffered an untimely death during the Civil War. He left behind a tangled family life. The pension application based on his service gave this descendant a means to begin unraveling it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Genealogists keep an ancestor’s age in mind when looking for records. A standard question is whether a man was eligible to have served in one of our nation’s wars. If so, did he apply for a pension? Pension application files can be rich sources of genealogical information. People wanted those pensions. They provided every document […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2180,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genealogyjottings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}