If your Civil War veteran relative was receiving a Union pension in January of 1898, he should have been sent this questionnaire asking about his marital status, previous wives, and children. There may be dates of death or marriage on that sheet that are not available elsewhere, especially in locations that don’t keep vital records. The illustration is from a Missouri veteran’s file and gives the name and death date for the veteran’s previous wife. Another sheet was needed to give the names and dates of birth for all his children. Civil War pensions for Union veterans are at the National Archives in Washington, DC.
These cards are contained within the veteran’s pension file. They are not a separate set of records.
In some cases this may be information you already have. In others, it could be a real help.
11 Responses
Question: are these digitized and/or indexed online anywhere? Or are the questionnaires available only in DC?
They are apart of the complete pension file and are not online. They are available at the National Archives in DC.
Very helpful as usual. I have found wonderful information in the Civil War Pension files including Bible records. They are a must for any 19th century researcher.
Very interesting. Unfortunately this was not included in the pension packet I received from the Archives and my Civil War ancestor was still alive that through November 1898 and receiving a pension. Thank you so much for posting this,I’m going to contact the Archives to see if they can go back through is file for this. I’m hoping it’s there, it might really help the brick wall that has been stopping me in my tracks about one of his wives. Thank you so much!!!!
Does this include widows who were receiving pensions on that date? Inquiring minds want to know.
I’m pretty certain it’s just the veterans.
When sending for info. at the Archives, should note that you want ALL info. in the file,
Sometime in the 1900’s the pension office sent out a medical survey to the subset of surviving Civil War pensioners that had been wounded during the war (basically amputees) asking them about their medical treatment, condition, diet, their daily life, etc. These questionnaires didn’t end up in the pension files though, they were forwarded to the College of Physicians in Philadelphia.
I found out about this a few years ago and most genealogists I’ve spoken to seem unaware of the collection but I thought this post about pension surveys would be a good place to mention it in case any readers are interested.
The collection is held by the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. I don’t know if you accept links in comments, but they have a blog post about it in the link below (if you don’t accept them then just delete it)
http://civilwarrx.blogspot.com/2011/08/mutter-minute-civil-war-survey.html?m=1
Thanks for posting that Steve!
My ancestor answered “Don’t remember. No record” to most of those questions!
I have one that couldn’t remember anything. That’s really frustrating when that’s the answer they give.