Week 17: War (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2024 Version)

The theme for Week 17 is "War." One would be hard pressed to find someone whose family history was not touched by war. This week, consider someone in your family tree who was affected by war, whether as a soldier or a civilian. Click here to see all the 2024 prompts.

As the song goes, WAR, what is it good for, NOTHING. Actually, from a genealogy perspective, it can produce lots of genealogical records.

It was from Civil War pension files, that I was able to get more information about two of my ancestors. In fact, one of those ancestors gave testimony for the other’s pension. One was the son-in-law of the other, thus, it confirmed what my female’s maiden name was. These pension files shed light on what happened to my ancestor(s) during the war and afterwards.

I even found out that my female ancestor started collecting a death benefit on her “not so dead” husband. He was living in a Veterans Home in one state and she was living in the neighboring state. When he reached the age to start collecting a disability benefit, they found out she was collecting. They only gave her a slap on the hand, and just stopped paying her. It doesn’t appear they made her pay back any benefits. And then when he did die, she started collecting again. 

I have found other ancestors and relatives in draft card registrations. Even though they didn’t actually get drafted, they filled out a card. These cards sometimes give physical descriptions of my relative, along with their birth date and place, where they are living and who their “next of kin” might have been. I found a few who were married at the time of the draft that I never knew had married. 

If your relative did serve, perhaps a family member requested one of those special headstones for your relative. That generated another document, where it will give a birth and death date, a burial location and even date of service. My mother’s first husband died while she was married to him and the card has my mother’s signature on it. I just noticed that it was placed on the grave on the day my mother gave birth to my brother. She had just found out she was pregnant with her sixth child when her husband died from a tragic work-related accident.  

Don’t forget to explore the military paperwork that is associated with War.

Remember Just Do Genealogy!