![]() If a man was captured by the enemy, deserted or died while in service, his file should have a reference to it. You might find he stayed in a field hospital due to illness, or learn when he was wounded. These bits of data can tell you a good deal about your ancestor’s wartime experiences. date he mustered out (left) the company or died.notations about illness, wounds or desertion.date and location he mustered into (joined) the unit.In addition to the soldier’s rank and military unit, you might discover some or all of the following in a CMSR: Civil War and later folders tend to be more robust than those from earlier wars. The number and type of cards included in a CMSR varies from war to war and soldier to soldier. Accuracy was vital to the government officials who transcribed the data in them, so the original rolls rarely contain more information than was copied into the CMSR. How trustworthy are CMSRs? Though derivative sources, CMSRs have highly reliable information. If your ancestor re-enlisted or served in two different companies during a war, he’ll probably have two separate CMSRs. Civil War “volunteers” included men who were drafted as well as those who enlisted voluntarily. With the exception of the Revolutionary War, few CMSRs exist for men who served in the regular Army (career soldiers). By the time the CMSR record-keeping system was discontinued before World War I, clerks had created about 58 million cards.ĬMSRs primarily cover those who served in volunteer military units, typically raised at the local or state level in times of war. Service records for Confederate soldiers, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine Insurrection were created a bit later. Once the Pension Office completed Union Civil War CMSRs, clerks did the same thing for men who’d served in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, 19th-century Indian wars and Mexican-American War. Family historians reap the same benefits today. Rather than sift through more than 500,000 rolls and books to verify a man’s service, pension officials could now find what they needed in minutes. In the aftermath of the Civil War, clerks of the War Department Record and Pension Office painstakingly copied information from original records onto the cards to expedite the processing of pension claims. Some CMSRs, especially those of officers, also may contain personal papers. The information on each card was taken from some type of original record in which the soldier’s name appears, such as an enlistment book, muster roll, hospital roll, descriptive book, prison record, payment voucher or discharge. The jacket is labeled with the soldier’s name, rank, military unit and a list of card numbers. What’s a CMSR?Ī CMSR is an envelope (called a jacket) containing a set of cards that provide an overview of an individual’s service in a military company. Louis, and many were destroyed by a fire in 1973. ![]() Records are generally held by the National Personnel Records Center in St. Note that service during more-recent conflicts-World War I to the present-was documented differently. Keep reading to learn how you might find a CMSR. The resulting compiled military service records, or CMSRs, offer a window of opportunity to genealogists looking for information about men who served in wars prior to 1902. ![]() Yet how do you determine whether an ancestor served in a war, if any records of his service exist, and where to find them?įortunately, the US government realized long ago that it needed a way to keep track of an individual’s service-especially when it came time to pay veterans benefits. Military service in the 18th or 19th century can be an important part of your family’s story. Have you heard stories about a Revolutionary War or Civil War soldier in your family, but lack documents about him? Or maybe you don’t have stories, but you wonder about your military heritage. Family Tree Templates and Relationship Charts.Best Genealogy Websites for Asia and the Pacific.Best Geography and Historical Map Websites.Best African American Genealogy Websites.Best US and Canadian Genealogy Websites.Surnames: Family Search Tips and Surname Origins.Preserving Old Photos of Your Family History. ![]()
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