Ancestry.com usually charges for Ancestry Academy courses (other than those about its own products). They’ve made an exception in the case of “Ancestors, Family, and Associates in the War of 1812 Records.” The course is taught by FamilySearch Chief Genealogical Officer, David Rencher, AG, CG, FUGA, FIGRS. The course consists of 12 video segments of about five minutes in length. David teaches these record types: the Congressional Record, pension records, bounty land records, state militia records, and prisoner of war records. The course requires a free Ancestry Academy account.
Ancestry may have made the decision to offer the course for free because the pension files are also free. Access them at “https://go.fold3.com/1812pensions.” The collection is not yet complete. Surnames “A” through “MO” have been posted.
Fold3 (now, Ancestry) partnered with the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) to bring these records to the public, free of charge. To do so, FGS is raising the money to pay for digitization. Fold3 has been good enough to match those contributions. I saw last week on Facebook that contributions are tax deductible. If you wish to contribute, go to https://www.preservethepensions.org/donate.
Another free course about the war and its records is “The War of 1812 Records - Preserving the Pensions” by Rebecca Whitman Koford. It is one of the Legacy Family Tree Webinar series.
I wanted to check this out, as one of my ancestors died in the War of 1812. He was in the Niagara Militia, fighting the American invasion. I was wondering if there was anything for Canadians here. But when I clicked the link above, I got a big "Oops." Tried again. Still "Oops."
ReplyDeleteJudyBG make sure that you are logged into an Ancestry account. You don't have to be a subscriber, just a registered user.
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