Fold3

[brass napoleon]

Just wondering what people here think of Fold3. I signed up for a free one-week trial of it, and am not sure whether it's worth continuing after the free trial ends. It seems like a nice interface, but I had a couple of CW soldiers to look up, and I didn't find any more information there than I would have found for free on the NPS Soldiers and Sailors database.

What say you?

 

[AndyHall]

I use it once a week, at least. It's not especially helpful looking up CSRs of Union troops, as most of those have not been digitized. (All, or nearly all, USCTs have been.) All the Confederate CSRs are in there, I believe. The Soldiers and Sailors database gives the barest minimum of info on individuals, unless I'm not using it right.

Fold3 also has a lot of other collections that I've used, including citizens' files, pension records, Navy enlistment records, admiralty court records from Key West, and so on. And of course, it covers all U.S. conflicts. So, yeah, it's an important source for me. I'm a cheap SoB, and I cringe every time it comes up for renewal, but then I think about how often I use it and stick with it.

Added: All the Confederate CSRs are available digitally because many years ago (the 1950s or 60s), the United Daughters of the Confederacy gave the money to have them microfilmed. So what you see of them online at Fold3 is a digitization of that old microfilm. The Union states, by contrast, are did not have an outside sponsor so most of those aren't done, and have to be ordered directly from NARA.

 

[rosefiend]

I'm told that pension records aren't available on there, and that I could order all that from the Nat'l Archives for a bit o' change. I wouldn't use Fold3 often enough to justify paying $50, BUT what I've done with Ancestry might work for them -- i.e. get all the info I can on all the folks I can, THEN sign up for the free trial, get as much as I possibly can out of it, then sail away with all my goodies.

What can I say, I'm a cheap SOB too!

 

[AndyHall]

CS pensions were done by individual states, so there's a lot of variation in what's available online, and where. Texas is available, for example, through Ancestry (subscription), but other states are available directly from their archives or through FamilySearch (registration required, but free).

 

[DaveBrt]

I'm on it about 3 hours a day, 6 days a week. It has what I need and the annual cost is less than a one-day visit to the National Archives in person. Take your free trial time to see if it has what you need.

Also, they give free access to everyone to certain areas all the time and free access to other areas now and then, usually for a 2-week period.

 

[brass napoleon]

...The Soldiers and Sailors database gives the barest minimum of info on individuals, unless I'm not using it right...

I agree that the Soldiers and Sailors database gives the barest minimum of info, but that's all I was able to find at Fold3 also. So maybe I just happened on a couple soldiers who don't have much info out there, or I'M the one who's doing it wrong.

 

[AndyHall]

Union soldiers? Most Union states have only index cards available, so Fold3 is not much help on those.

 

[DaveBrt]

Sometimes it takes a bit of looking to find what you want For example, if looking for a Confederate Officer, you need to check under Officers, under his State, and in Miscellaneous. He might also be in the CSA section if he was an Engineer, in the Nitre Bureau or in a Confederate (rather than state) unit.

Same in the Naval sections -- lots of looking to be sure you have everything.

 

[John Winn]

I've used Fold3 only for the civilian records (at our historical society which has a membership; cost me $5). I was able to find quite a bit about two ggg grandfathers' war-time businesses activities because they were required to get pardons due to being worth more than $20,000. Also, as they did business with the CS government, there are records of transactions also which were of much interest to me.

So, I can't say it would necessarily be worth $50 (although I think I would have paid such) to everybody - depends on what you are looking for. I think if it's just the standard military record info maybe not.

As to the NPS database, it is useful but definitely not complete and, yes, only provides the scantiest of info. Also be aware that when contacting the Archives, that hospital records are generally filed separately from military service records so if you suspect a person of interest may have been hospitalized you'll need to ask for hospital records separately or you may not get the whole picture. I had to hire a researcher to get John Winn's hospital records as the NA weren't "user friendly" in that regard but it only cost me pretty much what the NA would have charged anyway. Well worth it.

Good luck all !

 

[AndyHall]

Brass, check around your area libraries. A lot of them subscribe to sites like this and have access to it through them.

 

[brass napoleon]

Union soldiers? Most Union states have only index cards available, so Fold3 is not much help on those.

OK, that must be the problem. Yes, they were Union soldiers.

Fold3 has a search function where you enter the soldier's first and last name. Does this search function search through all their records, or does it have other databases that are searched in other ways?

 

[AndyHall]

As to the NPS database, it is useful but definitely not complete

That's another point I forgot -- the NPS database is built from the Compiled Service Records at NARA, so (barring errors) they include exactly the same names.

 

[AndyHall]

Another source that I've found useful is the American Civil War Research Database . That's only $25 annually, and frequently contains some info that the S&S does not..

 

[John Winn]

That's another point I forgot -- the NPS database is built from the Compiled Service Records at NARA, so (barring errors) they include exactly the same names.

I dunno ... I have three examples where I got service records from the Archives for persons who do not appear on the NPS database. So, I don't know what the glitch is but it seems likely that if I found three omissions there are probably quite a few. Use all the sources available.

 

[AndyHall]

Fold3 has a search function where you enter the soldier's first and last name. Does this search function search through all their records, or does it have other databases that are searched in other ways?

Depends on which part of the database you have highlighted. Example:

This will search for J. Smith but only in the U.S. First Louisiana Infantry:

 

[AndyHall]

Use all the sources available.

That's the golden rule in this stuff, much to my wallet's detriment.

 

[DaveBrt]

Depends on which part of the database you have highlighted. Example:

This will search for J. Smith but only in the U.S. First Louisiana Infantry:

View attachment 51668

Andy is correct, the search pictured will only be against the 1st La Inf., but you could select Union Records in the left-most column and search on all the Union service records at once.

 

[John Hartwell]

I buy a monthly subscription every few years, to see if there is anything "new" (last time there was nothing). It's easy to cancel before your subscription is automatically renewed.

As for the Archives: I have over 200 Federal pension and service records to search ... a trip to DC and a month in a cheap hotel would save me thousands! (and be a lot more fun than sending for them). I'm saving up for it now.

 

[18thVirginia]

I've found with Fold3, you just have to poke around and sometimes poke around some more. I found the Union pension files for one ggg father who succumbed to disease. His wife had to hire a lawyer because of complications with her claim, which ran to 30 pages.

Also found, totally by accident, a patent applied for by a g grandmother. I was able to go to other sources and find the patent application and where it was actually granted, which no one in the surviving family seems to have known about. Wouldn't have ever found that without Fold3. Also found records where another gr gr grandfather sold wheat and mules to the Confederacy. They sold corn to the U.S. Govt. before the War, but that was way more difficult to access.

But when I first signed up for a free trial, I thought--this is worthless.

 

[brass napoleon]

OK, here's what I see when I first log on:

If I type a name in there, it comes back and tells me it has a jillion matches, but it gives me the opportunity to filter those down into categories. I guess my question is, if I do it this way, is it really searching "All Records" like it says it is, or are there other places I should be looking too?