I spent the week before last immersed in Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research’s Military Records I: The Colonial Era To the Vietnam War course. I had three main objectives going into the course:
-
Learn more about pre-Revolutionary War conflicts
-
Learn more about War of 1812 records
-
Learn workarounds for WWII lost records
I fulfilled these objectives, and of course learned a lot more.
As a result, I’m going to start working on two new questions, both related to War of 1812 ancestors. Here are my new questions:
-
What did Robert Parks (b. 1776), who served in John Harris’s New York Militia, experience during his War of 1812 service?
-
Did Aaron Webster, born in 1775 and residing in Adams, Jefferson County, New York, in 1810, serve in the War of 1812 as purported in various sources?
This is my fourth time attending IGHR (second attending virtually). I took this military course because military research is not my strong suit, although I did learn that I knew more than I thought I did. Course coordinator Michael Strauss is a wealth of information when it comes to military records. The course was certainly a fire hose of information, but because I had certain objectives, I was able to really focus in on those and file the other nuggets of information for another time. This particular course went through each of the wars, starting with colonial wars, up through the Vietnam War. For each, we got a short history of the war and then a glimpse into the records that are available and where to find them. The next course in this three-course series will go deeper into the records and military organization (this is the piece I really need!). A big thank you to Lori Miller, David McDonald, and Judy Russell, who also taught in the course.
Like last year, the IGHR team did a great job to make this virtual version a success. I want to thank the IGHR team, Zoom Keepers, and course coordinators and instructors for all their hard work and making this an enjoyable experience!
Just curious if you found Aaron’s name of the free Fold3 1812 database and could find nothing more?? That happened to me on one of my 1812 men and I have not had time to look into it further.
Based on what I learned in the course (and after asking a question specifically related to this question of service), it sounds like he may not have been “federalized” and therefore would not show up in the index for service records (which explains why I’ve never found one for him). He died in 1823, so no pension either. I need to look at state-level records, so that will be the focus on my research plan 🙂
I enjoyed IGHR, too! Michael Strauss is so knowledgeable. Makes me really miss my dad. He was a military expert, too, and I should have listened more closely when he discussed research strategies.