U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-33

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smcarberry
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Location: USA

U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-33

Post by smcarberry » Sun Jan 09, 2011 1:12 pm

For several years, an online indexing of U.S. Civil War service men has been online, called the Soldiers and Sailors System. However, only one demographic group (not Irish) was singled out for inclusion of Navy men in the online system. Now there is a way to access online records of Navy men omitted from the Soldiers and Sailors System online database. The Internet Archives, usually regarded as containing digitized books, has a complete run of images from a NARA film of pension payment cards for disbursements 1907-1933 for all U.S. military men and also civilians receiving pensions due to their employment with a federal military branch. The great majority of these men served in the Civil War although I suppose that Spanish-American War veterans should also be in the later years in this series.

These cards are not the same as the NARA-filmed index cards developed from the pension files themselves. These cards are another way to determine if an Irish man served in a U.S. military unit (no indexing is perfect) and also to be farther along toward viewing a pension file, which can have an incredible amount of personal information, including exact birthplace. The content of each file varies, since proving a pension requirement would be the basis for submission of affidavits and other documentation. The actual pension files are archived only in Washington, D.C., accessible only after passing a cumbersome security process. Some file contents are on Footnote.com, although last month a knowledgeable Archives employee told me that it will take more than a lifetime for all these pension files to be imaged.

Viewing the payment card images is done by browsing only. If the payee was a widow or minor, the card is entered under that payee's name although the military man will be listed. States of service or residence are not usually given except when a part of the name of a military unit. I believe a date of death is generally provided or can be approximated from the last payment entry. This series is not a transcription. You view the cards just as they were completed contemporaneously with payment disbursements, and you can draw your own conclusions as to what the text means.

For a quick look at a typical card, use this link:
http://www.archive.org/stream/veteransa ... 3/mode/2up

For the portal to the whole series, here is the link:
National Archives microfilm publications -- microfilm publication M850
2539 microfilm reels
http://tinyurl.com/2e296yt

Once a pension file has been determined to exist and you have the proper reference to it, then photocopying can be ordered from NARA or a private researcher can be hired to view the file and extract desired information from it. My daughter in D.C. has done this for me in the past and is willing to do it again because she likes the Archives. I too can do a look-up when I am next in D.C. If you are very lucky, the target file might be one already imaged by Footnote.com.

I have not seen anyone else refer to this payment card series, so feel free to spread the word.

Sharon Carberry

Sduddy
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Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by Sduddy » Sat Jun 30, 2018 2:02 pm

I am reading ‘The Forgotten Irish – Irish Emigrant Experiences in America’, by Damian Shiels (The History Press Ireland, 2016). The book is about the effect of the Civil War on a small selection of Irish families (35) and is based on pension files*, census returns, passenger lists, contemporary newspaper reports, military records, and other archival material. The preface gives information on changes made to the rules and regulations governing pensions for the widows and the wounded. Application for a pension involved gathering quite a bit of information with the result that there is more information on the families of soldiers than there is on the soldiers themselves. Applications sometimes included letters, which, once submitted to the pension bureau, were filed away and never returned. He says that these files contain thousands of letters written by Irish emigrant soldiers, and that many provide the only surviving written record left behind by otherwise illiterate families - “Although many Irish emigrants could neither read nor write, the letters show that this did not stop them corresponding to with one another. Soldiers at the front would dictate their letters to literate comrades, and upon their arrival these letters would be read aloud to the recipient by a literate friend or relation, often in a communal setting”.
*Shiels thanks the National Archives in Washington DC and Fold3 for making the decision to digitize many of the pension files which form the heart of the book.

In the Elipogue, Shiels says, “The experiences of Irish Americans during the American Civil War era are well-remembered and well-studied in the United States, but such is not the case in Ireland. There remains a lack of appreciation for the scale of Irish involvement in this conflict, which in turn has led to neglect in terms of both historical analysis and public interest. This is partly to due to an historical insularity in the coverage of emigration that, in the words of a leading historian of the diaspora, sees much analysis end ‘with tearful farewells at Irish ports.’”

I was a little disappointed to find that not one of the 35 families selected by Shiels was from Co. Clare. In fact, looking at the index, Co. Clare is mentioned only once - that is in the case of a Bridget Donohoe living in the Aran Islands, who engaged attorney James Shannon of Ballingaddy, Ennistymon, Co. Clare, to assist her in gathering together the information she needed to make an application to the pension bureau – “In her application Bridget outlined her precarious position, stating that she would ‘have to go to a workhouse to end her days unless a pension be granted to her’… She gave her post office address as ‘South Island of Arran, County Galway, Ireland’, from where she claimed her monthly payment of $8 for the remainder of her life.”
According to Shiels, the American Civil War pension files are one the greatest untapped resources on the social history of the nineteenth-century Irish emigrants.

Sheila

smcarberry
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Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by smcarberry » Sat Jun 30, 2018 5:12 pm

Sheila, I fully agree that the pension files are an underutilized source for family history, a factor in my developing a database of Clare-born U.S. Civil War soldiers, donated and appearing on the Clare County Library website. Now that donations are again being taken, I should update that database with an additional 17 soldiers, which I find as I do my other research.

The benefit of the pension records for my own family history happened with my Luxembourg line whose young man was shipped out of New York and set down in a Louisiana field, where, just a year before the war's end, he suffered two gunshot wounds to a non-vital area which nonetheless caused his death while in Confederate custody. His commander later had to answer to Congress during a hearing on why he took only the able-bodied soldiers off the field on his way to the next engagement. I spent five years trying to locate a grave, which was futile as all experts agree that a mass burial likely was done. However, the soldier's father had to prove dependence on this son as his means of income, in order to receive his pension. The result was an affidavit listing all of the father's children - full names and full birth dates (some of which took place during a gap in church records). I had no reason to suspect such a thing existed, and collecting it was easy since that visit was prior to the current cumbersome security procedure at the front door.

However, since you are curious and you have done so much with your transcriptions for us all, I will collect some Clare-born soldiers' files when I can get to Washington, D.C. using one-hour access via a train stopping at my new town (but after the brutal heat wave of this next week). I think Kerry Barlow of this Forum might be interested in this one:

Robert Kerse b. 1835 Clare
Boston arrival 24 Apr 1850, in 1860 Richmond VA
M 382, roll 31 of NPS (fed.): Robert Kerse of VA, 2 VA State Reserves Co. B
U.S. Civil War Soldiers Index: Robert P. Kerse, 1st Regt. U.S. Dragroons (Army) Co. E
Robert Kurse 18 (b.1832), Northumberland 1850, port not NYC
Robert P. Kerse military service 12 Jul 1861 Ft. Walla Walla, Washington Territory
Robert P. Kerse C.W. Pension, NARA, 1st Cav Co. I, Sgt, 23 Nov 1864
Robt Kerse d. 2 Dec 1895 RVA

Some of the pension files are exceedingly long if a veteran lived off his pension decade after decade, because medical examinations were detailed (i.e. graphic) and fully reported, decade after decade. Let's see if I can report back with some interesting stuff from other parts of the files.

SMC

kbarlow
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Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by kbarlow » Sun Jul 01, 2018 2:33 am

Sharon, your excellent file-keeping has given us some more gems. Thank you so much for this one relating to a Robert Kerse. The Kierce/Kearse/Kerse (and many other variant spellings) name mainly seems to occur in Clare, in the locality around Ennis. It is highly likely this Robert is related to my Kierce family. If you do get time to check his records, I will be very grateful. Are you allowed to photograph key details? When I was in the NLI in 2016, the staff were more than happy to let us take digital pics of a small proportion of the article/record, and the State Library of NSW lets me do the same.

I did contact the other person in the US, who you said was also searching for a Robert Kerse, but never had a response, sadly.


kind regards, Kerry

Sduddy
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Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2010 10:07 am

Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by Sduddy » Sun Jul 01, 2018 6:41 pm

Hi Sharon
Thanks for drawing attention to your donation of the list of 381 Clare-born U.S. Civil War soldiers, which I often searched when I was working on familytree, but must confess had forgotten about recently. It’s a great job of work.

Hi Kerry
Rath-Kilnaboy baptisms 1837 – 1862 show a Robert Kerse, son of Robert Kerse and Ellen White, Corofin, was baptised 24.10.1840 (page 24 online). That couple already had a daughter, Maria, who was baptised 20.08.1837 (page 7 online). But this Robert born in 1840 doesn’t match the U.S. Civil War soldier who was born in 1835.
However, the Rath-Kilnaboy marriages 1818 – 1844 show a Robert Kierce married Cath Lawler from Glanroe, Kilnaboy, in Jan. 1823 (page 7 right) – note says “de Finebornensi” (from Kilfenora). I don’t see this couple in the Kilfenora baptisms, but, wherever they lived, they probably had a son called Robert.

Sheila

kbarlow
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Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by kbarlow » Mon Jul 02, 2018 6:49 am

Thank you Sheila for this info. I think I have found 3 of Robert Kierce & Cath Lalor's children in Ballarat (Vic), as they migrated in the 1850's, with no sign of a brother Robert with them. There is a Robert Kearce born to Timothy & Anna O'Keefe in 1832 (possibly 7 other children to this couple, according to your transcriptions). I cannot find evidence of them migrating to Oz. So it is possible the Robert Kerse whom Sharon refers to is related to Timothy & Anna.


A Robert Kierce is listed as a landholder in the vicinity of Leana over several years (1855 & 1876).

regards, Kerry

smcarberry
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Location: USA

Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by smcarberry » Fri Apr 05, 2019 1:44 pm

smcarberry wrote: ...I think Kerry Barlow of this Forum might be interested in this one:

Robert Kerse b. 1835 Clare
Boston arrival 24 Apr 1850, in 1860 Richmond VA
M 382, roll 31 of NPS (fed.): Robert Kerse of VA, 2 VA State Reserves Co. B
U.S. Civil War Soldiers Index: Robert P. Kerse, 1st Regt. U.S. Dragroons (Army) Co. E
Robert Kurse 18 (b.1832), Northumberland 1850, port not NYC
Robert P. Kerse military service 12 Jul 1861 Ft. Walla Walla, Washington Territory
Robert P. Kerse C.W. Pension, NARA, 1st Cav Co. I, Sgt, 23 Nov 1864
Robt Kerse d. 2 Dec 1895 RVA
Just back from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where to get this file I had to be persistent but it worked. It turns out that Robert P. Kerse died about 1865 (with no children) so my posting, above, has listings for at least two men named Robert Kerse. I suspect that the one using a middle initial of "P" is the same man in different parts of the country. That is unusual but not implausible, as some men had the lifestyle of a professional soldier, going where assigned or where they could join up for a specific conflict involving the army. I have details on Robert P. Kerse that I will send directly to Kerry Barlow, but here are two things that might be useful here:

1. Robert's wife was a Corofin-born woman named Ellen (her photographed obituary from the pension file is being sent directly to Kerry B.), whose second husband also served in the army in Washington Territory (before that jurisdiction became a state), and

2. National Archives material on Robert, indexed with specific numbered references I submitted when requesting the physical file, actually is in the file of his widow Ellen's second husband, for whom she again received a military pension after his 1909 death and before her own in 1916. I had to show NARA staff the actual pension index card with its clear numbers for Robert, which were then instantly researched by staff who found the later pension file and brought it out for me. This same level of service and concern for a researcher was also shown to me at the National Archives in Dublin over the years, so the lesson is be clear, calm, and persistent when you really need to view a file.

My lesson learned yesterday is that it takes far more than an hour to get to D.C. - more like 3 hours each way using the train but it was a great day.

Sharon Carberry

kbarlow
Posts: 160
Joined: Thu Feb 20, 2014 12:07 am

Re: U.S. Veterans Administration pension payment cards 1907-

Post by kbarlow » Sat Apr 06, 2019 2:44 am

Hi Sharon,

I'm sorry your journey to the archives took so long - thank you so much for including Robert Kierce in your searches. You have provided us with some fantastic pieces of information. I look forward to Ellen's details & hope we can glean enough info to ascertain Robert's family connections.

Kind regards, Kerry

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