Monday, April 30, 2012

Civil War Widow's Pension Applications

A fascinating new addtion to the world of primary documents online is in the news. It is the project to scan and post online the records of the pension applications by widows of Union veterans. These records were never microfilmed and thus were only available to researchers on site at the National Archives. Now they will be online for all interested historians and geneaologists. You can learn more about this project by viewing the National Archives video on YouTube. Shown here is a photo of Gertrude Janeway, who when she died in 2003 was the last known surviving widow of a Union solder; she had married John Janeway, a former officer in the 14th Illinois Cavalry, in 1927 when he was 81 and she was 18.

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