Look into your Revolutionary War Veteran Ancestors this July!

On July 4 Americans will gather to celebrate the 238th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the moment when thirteen colonies formally declared themselves to be the United States of America.  Six years later that independence was officially realized at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.  Take a moment to think about how different American history would have been if the men and women of the colonies did not stand up to Great Britain.  Perhaps one of these unsung everyday heroes is even your ancestor.  

There are numerous obstacles that get in the way of finding information about your Revolutionary War veteran ancestors, the first of which is determining whether they served at all!  Since the first United States Census was conducted in 1790, eighteen years after the end of the war with only limited data recorded, and much of the original data destroyed or lost not much is to be found there.  Death records, grave markers, and local histories can provide better clues, but may be difficult to locate due to their age.

In 1800 and 1814 most of the military records for the Army and Navy belonging to the War Department were destroyed, including records from the Revolutionary War.  Since then an effort has been made to recreate the data in those records, called Compiled Military Records, by collecting information from as many supplementary materials regarding individual veterans as possible.  This includes data from muster rolls, enlistment and discharge papers, hospital records, payrolls, prison records, and rank rolls, among other sources.


Some of the most helpful records for genealogists concerning Revolutionary War veterans are pension records.  Pension records can contain supporting military documents, marriage certificates, birth records, death certificates, among other relevant documents.  Because of their age, pension records for Revolutionary War veterans may not contain as much information as those for veterans of later wars.  A look into land bounty records may also be worth your while.  Land bounties were grants of land given by the government in return for military service between 1775 and 1855.  The applications often contain information similar to that of the pension records.  Pension and Land Bounty records are kept on file at the Textual Archives Services Division in Washington D.C.  You can learn more about the Textual Archives Services Division and how to make record requests here.

The Godfrey is planning on adding 20 new records to the Revolutionary War section of the Scholar by the end of July.  This includes muster rolls, regimental histories, histories of state involvement, general histories, and pension records.  If, in the spirit of Independence Day, you feel like researching your Revolutionary War era ancestors be sure to make the Godfrey Scholar's Revolutionary War collection a part of your search!

This Week in the Scholar

We are continuing to sort through our collection of Revolutionary War books and adding them to the Scholar!  Books, state regimental histories, muster rolls and other records, we have a little bit of everything!

We are also happy to announce that all books and records in our Military section, save a few files giving us some trouble, are now available in our Page Viewer!  All these files are fully searchable and easy to navigate.  Next week the pdfs in the State and Local Histories section get the same treatment!

The Doolittle Funeral Home in Middletown Connecticut has generously offered to let up scan and add volumes of their burial returns from post 1950!  The first of these new volumes is already up!  An index is in the works and you can expect this volume and the others we upload to be searchable in the near future.

Funeral Home Records
Doolittle Funeral Home Funeral Home Burial Returns Dec. 1950 to Oct. 1952 

Revolutionary War
State Papers of New Hampshire Vol. 14: Rolls of Soldiers in the Revolutionary War*
Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War*
Pennsylvania Archives 2nd Series, Vol. 10: War of the Revolution Battalions and Line*
Pennsylvania Archives 5th Series, Vol. 4: Pension Applications*
Pennsylvania Archives 6th Series, Vol. 2: Muster Rolls Relating to the Associators and Militia of the County of Washington*

Civil War

The 2nd Regiment of Rhode Island* The 5th Regiment of Rhode Island* History of the 9th and 10th Regiments Rhode Island Volunteers*

 Vermont in the Civil War*
Wisconsin in the War of Rebellion*
The Military History of Wisconsin*

Spanish American War
Roster Roll of the 8th Army Corps

Miscellaneous  
The American Historical Register of the Patriotic-Hereditary Societies of the United States*
The Lucky Bag: 1922, The Annual of the Regiment of Midshipmen United States Naval Academy*
NH, The Loyalist Refugees of New Hampshire*
NY, Our Veterans Brave and Noble*

*Searchable

Not a Scholar?  Visit our website to subscribe today or call the library at (860) 346-4375.

This Week in the Scholar

In addition to creating the American Genealogical-Biographical Index Godfrey Library founder Fremont Rider published a three volume set of the genealogy of the Rider (Ryder) families.  This set, titled, Preliminary Materials for a genealogy of the Rider (Ryder) Families in the United States*, is now a part of the Godfrey Scholar+ Online Library!

Don't let the "Preliminary Materials" portion of the title deter you: in these three volumes Fremont Rider compiled information regarding members from forty independent Rider/Ryder families by searching through over twenty thousand books, over two thousand probate manuscripts and vital records, and engaging in detailed correspondence with nearly four hundred members of the Rider/Ryder families.  In his own words Rider states that this work, "is intended to furnish a foundation upon which, perhaps, later "Rider" genealogists may usefully build.  In the meantime it will provide those seeking the genealogical background of this wide-spread plexus of families with a great deal of basic data."

Like the AGBI the Rider (Ryder) Genealogy is arranged according to the "Rider Trace" System of Presentation.  Persons are listed alphabetically by last name.  Under each person's name is a small selection of relevant information which may include the date and place of birth, spouse, children, and other important dates.  Notations as to where the information was originally found are also listed under the names.  The key to decipher the abbreviations abbreviated notations is located in the colored pages of Volume 1.

A Rider (Ryder) Genealogy finding aid will be available soon.  In the finding aid we will provide a key for notation abbreviations and links to the sources referenced (when possible).

Other Additions

Military
Histories of the Thirty-Third, Thirty-Seventh, Thirty-Eighth, Forty-Second, and Forty-Fourth Regiments from Massachusetts in the Civil War*
Histories of the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Regiments from New Hampshire in the Civil War*

State and Local Histories
The History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts*

*Searchable

Not a Scholar?  Visit our website to subscribe today or call the library at (860) 346-4375.