December 21, 2011 by Blake Scarbrough | 1 Comment
Santa visits orphans in England during World War II. Source: WWII US Air Force Photos
There’s no place like home for the holidays.
Celebrating at home with loved ones is part of any holiday tradition. Soldiers fighting on foreign shores in 20th-century wars added traditional touches to their celebrations away from home. Please enjoy a slideshow of Christmas and Hanukkah traditions from the front lines.
View our slideshow that highlights wartime service during the holidays.
November 16, 2011 by Laura | Comments Off on Mexican War Service Records
The US-Mexican War determined the southwest border of the United States as we know it today. Fighting began after the 1845 annexation of Texas and ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. The territory gained would ultimately become the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Texas, and Colorado, with portions contributing to Wyoming and Kansas.
Mexican War Service Records contain valuable first-hand information about battles, troop movements, officers, and soldiers. While the United States had a standing army at the time, most of the soldiers who fought in the Mexican War were volunteers from various states. At present, there are five sets of records on Fold3 with information on forty-four units, and the men who served in them, from Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and the Mormon Battalion.
Muster Rolls provide details on Promotions, Payments, Casualties, Those killed in battle and deserters, as well as physical descriptions. Unit information includes company muster rolls naming recruits, deserters, and those on special assignment; and regimental returns with battle histories and casualties. Company locations—the National Palace Mexico, Lobas Island in the Gulf of Mexico, and Camp nr. Jalapa Mexico—provide geographic perspectives.
Other titles on Fold3 round out the Mexican War Collection. If you’re interested in a Pennsylvania soldier, alphabetical service record abstracts in the Pennsylvania Archives match the imaged service record cards within the state’s two regiments. For Mormon Battalion soldiers, you can pair service records with the Mormon Battalion Pension Files.
Explore the Mexican War Service Records to learn more about the men who served in this geographically critical war.
October 26, 2011 by Peter | 16 Comments
This week we reached an important milestone in the War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Applications project we’re working on with the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the National Archives.
The files are arranged in alphabetical order by the last name of the soldier, and this week we’ve finished with the A’s and started work on soldiers whose last names begin with B.
Prepping, filming and indexing these paper documents is slow and expensive work, but FGS has been raising money, we’ve been matching it and we’re making our way through the boxes of paper. There are now over 95,000 images available on the site.
Getting the images from paper takes more work, but the end result is beautiful color images that tell amazing stories and provide helpful insights.
Here are a few images from the file of Joseph Babb:
After September 4, 1887, Joseph's widow Elizabeth's pension was "dropped because of her death."
According to another document in the file, Elizabeth Babb died on 14 September 1887, but there was "no public record of this death."
This document from the file includes a letter from Elizabeth's daughter, confirming her mother's death date and providing more details.
October 19, 2011 by Laura | Comments Off on Featured Content: Confederate Casualty Reports
September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day in American military history. The Battle of Sharpsburg (also known as the Battle of Antietam), fought in Maryland near Antietam Creek, resulted in over 23,000 casualties.
Accounts of the battle, written by Southern officers, can be found in the Confederate Casualty Reports on Fold3. Reports typically contain narratives of unit activities in battle, followed by lists of casualties: the dead, the wounded, the missing, and those taken prisoner.
Beginning with the report of Col. O.E. Edwards of the 13th South Carolina Infantry, and ending with the casualty list written by Capt. W.T. Poague of the Rockbridge (Virginia) Artillery, five official reports offer first-hand accounts of the Battle of Sharpsburg, also known as the Battle of Antietam.
Col. Edwards wrote how his men took position “along a fence-line on the edge of the corn; and there received the enemy upon our left, drove him back across the field, and held the ground till the action closed at 8 P.M.” He lost one man and fifteen were wounded.
Capt. Poague wrote, “Wm. Effinger stunned and burned in face by explosion of a shell,” then added that fourteen horses were killed or wounded. He concluded, “All the men and officers acquitted themselves most admirably. I cannot avoid entertaining a feeling of pride in having the command of such men.”
The Confederate Casualty Reports bring a unique perspective of military engagements in the Civil War. They are arranged by state, then by battle. Some reports include insights by Fold3 members, providing additional context or history. For example, with the Meredian Expedition, a comment about Forrest’s Cavalry explains that the 7th Tennessee Cavalry was also known as Duckworth’s Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Leonidas Duckworth.
From Chickamauga to Gettysburg, Vicksburg to Fredericksburg, these records include soldiers’ names, battle strategies, tributes to the troops, Indian encounters, and scouting reports. Access the Confederate Casualty Reports for more details.
Three new video tutorials and a variety of help topics are now available in the new Fold3 Training Center.
The first of several planned video tutorials include:
Each video is 4-5 minutes long and designed to provide tips and strategies to help you make the most of your Fold3 membership.
Report to the Fold3 Training Center to find helpful video tutorials and links to one-page explanations of the most common how-to topics. Keep checking back as we add more video tutorials and help topics.
We are excited to announce that we have begun adding the following new titles to the site, covering 5 wars and 130 years of U.S. military history:
Records in the War of 1812 Pension Files reveal details of each soldier’s service and family. In a declaration made by widow Mary Abbott, she elaborates upon her late husband’s engagements in Ohio after stating that he was “out three times in the War of 1812.”
From 1846 to 1848, the war with Mexico determined the southwest border of the U.S. as we know it today. The Mexican War Service Records launch Fold3’s commitment to bringing records of this strategic war to our members.
From skirmishes to major battles, documents within the Confederate Casualty Reports describe a unit’s role in the conflict and detail casualties, from killed to missing to “slightly” wounded. A few reports from the Battle of Sharpsburg (also known as Antietam) on September 17, 1862, relate the action from several units, beginning with the report of the 13th South Carolina Infantry.
The World War I Officer Experience Reports reveal intriguing accounts by engineers in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Some reports go beyond military and engineering terms to provide remarkable, sometimes poetic insights, like this January 6, 1919, account of a torpedo attack on a convoy hours after the writer described “the dark forested shores of North America” as “a mere fringe on the horizon.”
In 1942, men between the ages of 45 and 64 were required to register for the draft in order to create an inventory of those who could provide essential skills to the home front during World War II. The “Old Man’s Draft” Cards are the result, complete with addresses, dates, and physical descriptions of each registrant.
Watch for more to come as these titles continue to grow and others are added.
September 1, 2011 by Peter | 29 Comments
On September 15th we will be removing from Fold3 some of the newspapers that came from two of our partners, SmallTownPapers® and Gannett. This is due to contractual issues and we have no plans to remove any other content from the site.
Here are a few questions that you may have about this change:
Which titles will be removed and which will still be available on Fold3?
All titles from SmallTownPapers and Gannett will be removed. Nearly all of these titles are from our newspaper collection. To help you see which titles will be affected, we’ve collected those that will be removed into a category called “SmallTownPapers and Gannett” in the “Other Records” category of the browse on the site until they are removed on the 15th.
Only titles from SmallTownPapers and Gannett will be removed and we will still have great historical newspapers on the site including The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Constitution and The London Times.
What about images from these titles that I have added to my Gallery or downloaded?
All Gannett images will be removed from the site and will no longer be accessible on Fold3. From the SmallTownPapers collection, we have negotiated ongoing rights to images to which users have contributed (for example, bookmarked, commented on, annotated, spotlighted or added to their Gallery or to a memorial page). All other SmallTownPapers images will be removed from the site. Of course this will not affect any copies of images you have downloaded to your hard drive.
How does this affect other titles on Fold3?
This only affects titles from SmallTownPapers and Gannett. We have ongoing rights to all the other titles on the site and have no plans to remove any other content.