I don’t know if you recall the problems I’ve had trying to get the Civil War pension record for John Edwards, my 3rd great-grandfather.
You can read about my ongoing saga here and here and here.
To put it short and simple, he died in 1931 and his records aren’t in the National Archives along with the majority of the Civil War pensions. The first time I tried getting his pension packet was about 8-10 yrs ago – and to no avail. I tried again a few times over the years, getting very discouraged. This past January I got serious about it. I made a lot of phone calls to a lot of departments I didn’t know existed. I finally was told that the records were with the VA and not NARA. I put in my request and got a confirmation that they received it. And then I waited and waited and waited and waited some more. I tried calling the VA a few months back – have you ever done that before? Suffice it to say that I didn’t get through to anybody and I had just about given up on ever getting my hands on these records.
On Christmas, my mom called and said she’d received a package the day before – from the VA. (I put her address on the request since I knew we were moving and didn’t know if it would be forwarded to me!). I now have his entire pension packet – and it was FREE!!!
The best Christmas present EVER!!!
I will be sharing some of the things I’ve discovered from the records in the coming weeks.
Have any of you gotten Civil War records from the VA before?
