Fold3 HQ

2 Million Contributions and Counting

March 12, 2012 by Peter | 3 Comments

Not long ago we passed an important milestone and wanted to thank you for your help getting there. Fold3 members have now made over 2 million contributions to images and memorial pages on the site. Each contribution makes things easier to find, makes connections clearer and enriches the site.

Some members like vbetts, patootie63, aircraftclocks and others have made thousands of contributions.

We have a few great projects underway. The Lowcountry Africana group is indexing records from the South Carolina Estate Inventories and Bills of Sale, 1732-1872 and a group of NARA Volunteers is keying the captions from the Vietnam War photos.

We also have thousands of members who make the occasional contribution that relates to their research.

They may add valuable information that’s not available on the image:

or annotate a name, date or place which will help others find what they are looking for:

or add a picture that brings life to a Memorial Page:

Each contribution, big or small, makes a difference. Thank You.

To learn more about how you can contribute to Fold3, visit the Training Center.

Women’s History Month

March 1, 2012 by Laura | 1 Comment

In 1987, Women’s History Week became Women’s History Month. Since then, March has been observed as a month-long tribute to women and their significant contributions in American history. Numerous records and stories on Fold3 make these contributions more evident.

Women have served the military since the Revolutionary War. While their roles were initially as nurses and laundresses, there are many noteworthy instances of women serving as spies, and as soldiers while disguised as men.

Records on Fold3 attest to women’s triumphs in many areas where they famously and infamously made a mark on history. Some of the more intriguing include former slave Cathay Williams who went undercover as a man named William Cathay to become a Buffalo Soldier.

Several Spotlights about women in the Civil War have been published by our Fold3 Team. Documents relating to these women, under their male guise, are also evident within the Civil War Collection and on this member’s memorial page: Women Soldiers of the Civil War. Other Fold3 titles, including references to photos, stories, and documents about contributions made by women can be found on this Women’s History Month member page.

Of course, since WWII, women have a more active and official role within the military, both in war and peace. The Library of Congress dedicates a special page within its Veterans History Project profiling “Women of Four Wars.” Those resources, used in tandem with the military collections on Fold3, represent a special tribute to Women’s History Month.

Index to Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers

February 23, 2012 by Laura | 8 Comments

As Fold3 continues to add valuable content to the Civil War Collection, we have started placing online the alphabetical card index to compiled service records of Union troops.

Index to Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers

The first four states to go live are Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Each index card gives the name of a soldier, his rank, and the unit in which he served. Anyone looking for a Union a soldier in the Civil War will find these cards useful in identifying the state and regiment in which a man served and how his name appears in the military records. You can then locate his records to learn about his service in the war and the battles in which his regiment fought.

Beginning in 1890, Capt. Fred C. Ainsworth, head of the Record and Pension Division of the War Department, spearheaded an effort to create card abstracts of information from muster rolls, regimental returns, descriptive books, and other military records to build a compiled service record for each Union soldier. The index cards reference the resulting Civil War Service Records, many of which are also available on Fold3. As an example, the index card for Timothy Canty tells us that he served as a private and an artificer in Company A of the 1st New York Engineers. We can then find Canty’s service record as the 1st New York Engineers is one of regiments digitized on Fold3.

This new index, viewed as card images on Fold3, may be familiar to some. The National Park Service transcribed these cards, referred to as “General Index Cards,” and placed the data online in its Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System. When searching for a soldier there, you are provided with a transcription, while Fold3’s images allow users to view the original card as well as determine the accuracy of the transcription. Once you find the soldier you’re looking for, you can connect his index card to his service record on Fold3, or contact NARA for copies of his documents.

Explore the Black History Collection

February 1, 2012 by Laura | Comments Off on Explore the Black History Collection

In 1976, President Ford designated February as Black History Month to highlight the achievements of African Americans in U.S. history. He encouraged the nation to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”

In honor of Black History Month, we invite you to enjoy Fold3’s Black History Collection. This collection includes many enlightening historical records documenting African American achievements since the earliest days of our nation. Of particular interest are those from the Civil War era as we continue to observe the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

As soon as black soldiers were recruited to serve the Union in 1863, records were generated to document their service including Compiled Service Records for the U.S. Colored Troops and, ultimately, pension files. The pension file index cards, like this one for Joel Bedenbaugh, include a soldier’s rank, company, and regiment within the U.S.C. Infantry, his pension numbers, and sometimes a death date, 24 August 1913, in this case. Private Bedenbaugh’s 16-page service record also includes his enlistment record from when he joined up in Dayton, Ohio, in 1864.

Southern Claims Commission files are petitions by southerners who lost property to Union troops during the Civil War, including many blacks, like William and Louisa Ferguson. Though freeborn, Louisa was not only the wife of a slave, but also the daughter of George Washington’s carpenter, also a slave. Their claim for compensation of $150 for the loss of a horse was denied, but Louisa’s tales of Union and Confederate troops in the vicinity includes her encounters with the rebels and her service to the Union hospital nearby. View the transcription.

Explore these and thousands of other records documenting the history of African Americans in the U.S., from before the Civil War to the War in Vietnam. Join us as we recognize Black History Month with free access to our African American Collection during the month of February.

Numbered Record Books

January 19, 2012 by Laura | Comments Off on Numbered Record Books

The title, Numbered Record Books, doesn’t reveal much about this significant new collection of Revolutionary War documents on Fold3.
Yet, anyone familiar with these military records—oaths of allegiance, supply records, orderly books, letters, account ledgers—knows they contain revealing and rather extraordinary documents from the early days of our nation’s military history.Whether you have Revolutionary War ancestors, or simply an interest in military activities and history of this time period, you will be well rewarded when searching or browsing the Numbered Record Books.

Several of the volumes were used to create compiled service records. This card from the service record of Corporal Thomas Ferguson was abstracted from information on the fifth line of this roll of the 2nd New Jersey Regiment, January 1, 1777.

Orderly books include rosters, instructions relating to troop movements, camp regulations, reprimands, promotions, and findings of courts martial. A 1778 orderly book from Providence Headquarters details the results of three courts martial where one man was pardoned for falling asleep at his post; another sentenced “to be shot to death” for “stealing, insolence, disturbing the camp,” and additional violent actions; and a third was “to be whipped one hundred lashes on his naked Back” for stealing a rifle.

“Oaths of Allegiance, Fidelity, and of Office” are in volumes numbered 165-168. There we find the Oath of Allegiance of Abraham Rand, in which he declares he owes “no allegiance or obedience to George the Third King of Great Britain” and will “defend the said United States against the said King George Third.” It is followed later by Rand’s Oath of Office, in which he swears to “faithfully, truly and impartially execute the Office of Sub Conductor of Waggons.”

Within a 1779 list of military requisitions, we learn that fifes were delivered to one brigade, sheepskin and lead aprons to another, while Artillery Artificers received a bolt of duck cloth and a pound of twine. Other items seen frequently within the supply accounts include drum sticks, muskets, belts, and bayonets.

More information and examples are available within Fold3’s description of this title. Documents discovered in the “Numbered Record Books” round out stories and fill in gaps. They are overlooked evidence, underappreciated records, and hidden tales from our nation’s history. They now await your discovery.

Fold3 Turns Five

January 9, 2012 by Peter | 7 Comments

Five years ago, January 10, 2007, the Footnote website was born with a mission to provide convenient access to original source documents. We celebrated with a cake so orange that it probably shortened our lives.

When we launched, we had industry-leading digitization tools, a dedicated team and several great partners, including the National Archives, to provide content for us to digitize. We had about 5 million images including a complete and fully indexed set of the Revolutionary War Pensions, an Index to the Civil War Pensions and the Pennsylvania Archives.

Pension request for the widow of Elihu Stow

List of soldiers who served the pre-revolution province of Pennsylvania

Over the past 5 years we’ve worked hard to provide a place where genealogists, historians, students and curious people of all kinds could find and use original source documents to understand the past and the people who lived it.

We’ve had great reviews from people like Dick Eastman, PC Magazine and Kim Komando. More importantly, we hear great stories from people who use the site, like this one Janet Carlson recently posted on our Facebook page: “I love your record collection! I just found CSA records on my gg grandfather and found out that he was wounded in action and was taken prisoner during Price’s Raid in 1864.”

We’ve seen good times, tough times and even some times that were a little of both, like in March of 2008 when CNN featured the then newly launched Interactive Vietnam Memorial on their home page and so many people came to see it that we had trouble keeping the site going.

The last year or so has brought big changes. In October of 2010, Ancestry.com acquired our parent company, iArchives and with their help we’ve been able to add more content to the site more quickly. It’s been great to work with the world’s largest online family history resource.

US Military records have always been at the heart of the site, and in 2011 we decided to focus our efforts on them. In August, we changed the name of the website from Footnote to Fold3 to honor those who have sacrificed to defend their country and promote peace in the world.

We’re still chasing our goal of providing convenient access to original source records. Today we have over 85 million images including Civil War Service Records, World War II Missing Air Crew Reports, Marine Corps photos from Vietnam and many more.

Crew Photo from the WWII Air Force Photos

US Air Force photo of an air crew that participated in the battle of Midway

Civil War Service Record US Colored Troops

Muster card from the Civil War service record of George W Allen who served with the US Colored Troops

World War II Diary first hand account of the sinking of the USS Arizona

Firsthand account of the sinking of the USS Arizona from the World War II War Diaries

And we’re adding more all the time. Among the projects we are working on are some that will provide access to some of the large paper collections at NARA like the Civil War Widows’ Pensions, War of 1812 Pension Files and the Homestead Records.

Marriage Certificate in the Civil War Widows' Pension file of Jacob Seiber

Marriage Certificate of Jacob and Ann Seiber in the Civil War Widows' Pensions

Death information in a War of 1812 Pension file

Death information for Thomas Abbott in a War of 1812 pension file

What are your favorite titles on Fold3? Which would you like to see us work on in the next 5 years?

We’re excited to celebrate our 5th anniversary and we know that none of this would have been possible without your support.

Thank you.

The Battle of Cowpens

January 4, 2012 by Laura | 1 Comment

Nine months before the victory at Yorktown successfully ended what we now call the Revolutionary War, a critical turning point in the southern campaign occurred at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. On January 17, 1781, General Daniel Morgan and his Continental forces met the British forces of Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Strategic advantages were incorrectly assessed by Tarleton, orders were misunderstood among his troops, and the firepower of Morgan’s militia, coupled with a rewarding attack by Colonel William Washington’s cavalry, brought the Continental troops to victory. Within an hour of the battle’s start, chaos had ensued and Tarleton retreated.

As Tarleton fled, he was chased by Colonel Washington, a second cousin of George Washington. Once Washington and his men caught up to Tarleton, hand-to-hand combat ensued. Washington’s bugler, an African American who remains unidentified, fired a pistol, essentially saving Washington’s life. At that point, Tarleton and his men fled to notify Cornwall of the defeat.

In the Papers of the Continental Congress, there is a letter written by General Morgan telling of his battle trophy—the captured standard of one of the defeated regiments. Morgan recounts that General Green asked him “to lay at the feet of congress the standard of the 7th British Reg’t. which fell into my hands in the action of the 17th Jany.”

According to the The Battle of Cowpens website, maintained by the National Park Service, the term cowpens is “endemic to South Carolina, referring to open-range stock grazing operations of the colonial period.” It was such a pasture where General Morgan encamped his troops on January 16, with forage for their horses. This field, known locally as “The Cowpens” was the site of the next day’s conflict and thus, a historic battle was named.