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| Posted: Sat May 17th, 2008 02:09 am |
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1st Post |
deidreconine
Member
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I have recently started to trace my family tree and my father asked me to find a relative who fought in the war. I promised him i would but i have no idea where or how to start. Could someone please give me some advice!!!
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| Posted: Sat May 17th, 2008 04:52 am |
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2nd Post |
Bama46
Guest
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contact the UDC(United Daughters of the Confederacy) or the SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) or if your ancestor was an officer or member of the government there is the Military Order of the Stars & Bars (MOS&B) if your family was from the south...they will help, and if you find an ancestor, you are eligible to join a very special organization dedicated to preserving the history of the soldiers who fought. If your family was yankees, that is a shame, (LOL) but there is the United Sons of Union Veterans (USUV) who can help you join their orgainzation.
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| Posted: Sun May 18th, 2008 01:46 am |
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3rd Post |
ole
Member
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The easiest place to start, (from what I gather from reading this sort of thing -- there are others who know a whole bunch about it) is what is the relatives name? Where was he born?
From what I gather from our genalogy geniuses, you have to have a starting point. A name is required. Where he was living in 1860 is an even better place to start. You will get some fine responses if you can narrow the search to, at least, a name.
ole
ole
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| Posted: Sun May 18th, 2008 02:20 pm |
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4th Post |
Reb till death
Is a yank
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Yes every bit of info on the person counts. Some time discriptive information can tell a person apart from another once we get a name.
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| Posted: Sun May 18th, 2008 03:30 pm |
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5th Post |
Doc C
Member
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As mentioned in previous posts, the nps soldiers/sailor website, ancestry.com are quick ways to start if you have a name and state for the individual.
Doc C
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| Posted: Sun May 18th, 2008 07:04 pm |
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6th Post |
Reb till death
Is a yank
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footnote is cheeper to get a copy of the records if they have it much cheaper when they do.
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| Posted: Thu May 22nd, 2008 06:42 am |
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7th Post |
cklarson
Member
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Having gone through this process for my mother's family, starting with very little information, here are my suggestions:
1) see if your family surname has a genealogy forum on the internet; just "google": "[Surname] famly forum" and the URL will come up; usually there is a "parent" of the forum (normally women) who have CDs from services, etc. and are family experts; most likely someone has already done your line or parts of it and you'll find cousins.
2) go to your local library anf find out what genealogical sources they have: database services to ancestry.com, etc. With ancestry.com you can view, not only the census, you ancestor is listed on, but also his CW service record--which doesnt' say much, unfortunately; also use the old census books, as sometimes mistakes are made in both.
3) if you have to back track from start--start with a gparent who was living in 1930 at the latest--this is the last year all the names of persons in a family were listed on the census individually (and 1850 the earliest)--go back as far as you can--identifying males by name you're looking for
4) find the county your ancestor was living in and find the county history done probably in the 1880s (for help go to http://www.nypl.org > CATNYP > keyword search); and some are being redone currently; look for other local information such as books on marriages. Use the nypl.org to look for family books, too.
5) go to http://www.findagrave.com -- look for grave site
By going back and forth between the Genealogy forums (also search related families), the census data, and county histories, I was able to quickly fill in most of my mother's line. However, sometimes, people just are not in the census (if they were not at home when the taker came, they did not get listed) or you have to go back very far (one ggggmother finally turned up in 1840 in NYC and was missing in the census book, but found on anceestry.com).
Also once you find the county your ancestor lived in you can write the county clerk for any records. The cost is about $2 a piece. The local library there might also have cemetery listings and other books.
Good luck!
CKL
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