Question about Fold 3?

[Bruce Vail]

I wanted to say thanks to all the CWT folks for helping me on these questions about Fold 3.

I took the free trial period and had good results (except for the copying on my home printer part). I cancelled the day before the fees started kicking in, so it was an inexpensive experiment.

I'm lucky that the amount of documentation for my family ancestors is so plentiful. Since using it, I have developed some ideas for going back to the database and doing additional research and am waiting to get an attractive discount offer in the e-mail (I have already received several).

Again, thanks to you all!

 

[Bruce Vail]

Oooops....I reproduced this image as a test. I'm having a bit of a problem with image reproduction and am making some tests.

The face is George W. Ward (1832-1884), as identified in an old family history book.

FYI - My sister made this image from her I Pad off an old genealogy book.

 

[GMSorrel]

If you decide you want to do a full year, wait until black Friday. You can get it for half off. Even if they don't advertise, call them and it works (or has for the past several years)

 

[Suzanne A]

The National Archives generally doesn't have Confederate Pension files as those pensions were offered by the States. State archives should be searched instead. There are a few exceptions to this in the later years (20th C) of the pension laws.

Also the National Archives does now have a policy that they will not search or allow you to search for the originals of records on fold3 unless you can demonstrate a particular need to see the original.

All this digitization is not popular with the Archives' staff members, who generally know their field well and know what kinds of records exist. It will be a great loss to the researcher in this way when everything is digitized. I got a tour and a complete lecture from a staff member on Congress's involvement in granting and reviewing denials of Civil War pensions one day. I saw material I would never have known about which was referenced only by a notation of cryptic numbers on the jacket of the service record. Fold3 doesn't tell you the meaning of what you're seeing and how to find other related records.

 

[Suzanne A]

Re General Meade's search tips, an experienced staff member at the DC National Archives who I know as Dorothy told me she never searches a soldier by entering the name but goes to the category of record (such as "Civil War Service Records"), then to Union or Confederate, then to the state (or US), then to the regiment and finally she browses the list of soldiers in that regiment, usually grouped alphabetically, to find her man.

She probably does this precisely because of the problems with a name search that Gen Meade points out. Fold3 was acquired by Ancestry, but it does not have as good a search engine and I find it very quirky. If I have trouble finding something, I usually ask someone who may know a different approach.

 

[Northern Light]

View attachment 112486


Oooops....I reproduced this image as a test. I'm having a bit of a problem with image reproduction and am making some tests.

The face is George W. Ward (1832-1884), as identified in an old family history book.

FYI - My sister made this image from her I Pad off an old genealogy book.

Your man has the most beautiful eyes!

 

[Bruce Vail]

Your man has the most beautiful eyes!

Yeah....the dreamy eyes are a family feature. My wife's eyes are a dark pool of loveliness.

A little bit of mixed genes though. Carol's mother had those eyes, and she had no blood relation to Lt. Ward.

 

[Northern Light]

My wife's eyes are a dark pool of loveliness.

How very poetic! My husband would describe my eyes as, "Brown.... I think."

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

I forgot to mention that although Fold3 is a great resource, they don't have everything.

Always follow up with the State Archives.

I've had two situations where both the Mississippi & Louisiana archives had extra documents about my ancestors that Fold3 did not.

The Louisiana Archives had some records that were game changers for lack of a better term.