Tips for highly popular names

[Dacluver]

How to decipher which ancestor is mine with a highly common name. William Martin of Sumner Co. TN is mine. I have found that name in numerous TN regiments, Yank and Reb. I have searched for where the unit was raised when I find one with a William Martin. The gentleman that I believe I have my eyes on is in the 1st Regt TN infantry. COMPANY F. There is also a William Martin in company L however he later deserts. The company F soldier is killed at Perryville. My William Martin's wife (my 4xgg) is remarried in 1866. Leading me to believe he did not survive the war.

Any ways to tie this up?

 

[lupaglupa]

Boy do I feel your pain! My Martin line is one of the harder ones to get good data on. And don't even ask me about the Smiths. Grrr.... as Roy Kent would say.

In this case what I would look for first is a pension record, for either William or his wife. That will have a residence in post war years which you can likely match with your ancestors records (if you know that). Can you give us more info on him? Birth date, birth place, wife's name, etc.?

In that part of Middle Tennessee you are right to look at both CSA and USA records. Also, you might look at Kentucky units.

 

[Fairfield]

My William Martin's wife (my 4xgg) is remarried in 1866. Leading me to believe he did not survive the war.

Frequent names are a bear. I'd find the nearest relative with a unique name and follow him/her: your relative may appear connection.

Usually I am pretty slow to assume that someone died during the war because there may be a name change or an abrupt removal; however with the widow remarrying so quickly, your guess may be accurate. Were there children you can trace?

I'd also try to find a death certificate for the widow. Even though she remarried her death certificate may have comment about any previous marriage. Ditto his pension file (if any).

 

[John Winn]

How to decipher which ancestor is mine with a highly common name. William Martin of Sumner Co. TN is mine. I have found that name in numerous TN regiments, Yank and Reb. I have searched for where the unit was raised when I find one with a William Martin. The gentleman that I believe I have my eyes on is in the 1st Regt TN infantry. COMPANY F. There is also a William Martin in company L however he later deserts. The company F soldier is killed at Perryville. My William Martin's wife (my 4xgg) is remarried in 1866. Leading me to believe he did not survive the war.

Any ways to tie this up?

I feel your pain. If a pension application exists that certainly would be the way to go; genealogical gold mines usually. If there isn't one then it just gets tedious and sometimes there's just no existing documentation to prove something one way or the other.

And your people would have known my people as my grandfather was born in Sumner County and his folks go back to when it was North Carolina. Two greats and several great greats buried in Kentucky just over the state line (the farm was only a couple of miles from the state line). No Martins, though, in my line.

 

[Stryker65]

Oh definitely...I don't have any ACW ancestors to research, but I read a lot of the original documents, and I've held off for months now on transcribing the parole records for Gibson's Louisiana brigade because of the difficulty in reading all those Creole names
There's still a ton of officers in Dept. of AL, MS, LA staff that I can't figure out, since their names are either so common or so unique that I can't find a reference to them, here's the thread where I have most of them.

 

[Stryker65]

Occasionally there will be sites that list the records of all soldiers of a state; Louisiana has this one for its soldiers, and it's helped me greatly while trying to figure out which Smith an article is referring to. I assume you've already seen and utilized tngenweb.org.