Pensions paid to veterans, their widows or their descendants are usually valuable research resources if you’re lucky enough to find one for an ancestor.
Always consider looking at pensions for anyone who may have the same surname, especially if it’s an unusual name, because they could be related or at least provide clues to another family branch.
Revolutionary War pensions posted on Fold3.com can be searched for the mention of other names, such as men who were witnesses, giving another clue as to your ancestor’s role in that war.
Revolutionary War narrative statements made by the soldiers themselves, but not the full applications, can be found on the Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Pension Statements and Rosters site at www.revwarapps.org. It’s limited to Southern soldiers. That site also could be of use to those interested in first-person accounts of the war.
Pensions from the War of 1812 are slowly coming online as part of the joint effort of several genealogy groups; see Fold3.com to check the latest. An index to the soldiers with War of 1812 pensions, covering A-H so far, can be found at www.learnwebskills.com/patriot/war1812pensions.htm. Within this index you can search under each letter by county and see who applied from your area.
A War of 1812 pension index published in book form by Virgil White is in many libraries. A case study by John Sloan of the War of 1812 pension for Penelope Johnson of Rockdale County appeared in the winter 2012 issue of the Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly. It shows how much can be gleaned from pension documents.
McDuffie newspaper extracts
Fred W. McRee Jr. has published “McDuffie County, Georgia, Newspaper Extracts, 1872-1879,” in which he includes fairly complete articles from these newspaper issues.
The book makes very interesting reading, covering a wide range of information as well as a larger area than just McDuffie and Thomson, its county seat. One interesting account is of the 1875 tornado that wrecked the area.
There is a full-name index. The book has been purchased and distributed to genealogy collections by the R.J. Taylor Jr. Foundation. It is available for $29 postpaid from Fred W. McRee Jr., P.O. Box 128, Dahlonega, GA 30533. He has a list of his other publications as well.
Atlanta records online
Familysearch.org recently posted Fulton County records from the Atlanta History Center, 1827-1933, in its Georgia section. These are Atlanta records from the Franklin M. Garrett materials on microfilm, and there is no overall index yet. Covered are vital records, court minute abstracts, obituary abstracts, and cemetery and census records.
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