Annals of Family History: Our First War Here

[substitute]

My greatsomething grandfather Jacob arrived in the American colonies from Darmstadt-Hesse, Germany in about 1750 as an indentured servant. His brother Sebastian apparently bugged out and headed home at the end of his service, but Jacob liked it enough to stay in "Pennsylvanian Dutch" country with the other Germans. My family has had a presence in Lancaster County since, and in Ohio.

Family legend was that Jacob served in the Revolutionary War. My brother confirmed this a few years ago doing genealogy. I decided to take it a step further and contacted the National Archives' Military Records Department. If you're the relative of a U.S. veteran you can get anything they have, as far back as they have it, at a reasonable price. So, for $17 I requested and got Jacob's records: the index card in his file and two pay stubs indicating his service and what he got for it. It looks like the pay was a bit late, but he got interest on it. There may have been a land donation, too. And of course, citizenship, since that's not an issue when you're on the startup team. Scans are below the cut, or in this flickr set.

Comments

[pilarcruz.livejournal.com]

That's neato. Fortunately for me, my family never throws anything away, and my grandmother is a repository of Leahy family documents. The only price I have to pay is listening to my grandfather talk about how I'm almost 30 and unmarried. Dick.

[kiteflier98.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting this! It's always great to get these tips having genealogy for an interest. Those scans are really cool, btw. It's neat to see how many different signatures there are and how a person's name could change from the appearance of the writing.

[kennfusion.livejournal.com]

I see, so this is what they sign for payroll? No wonderthey are so well preserved....proof they paid them.

[baconmeteor.livejournal.com]

That form has a Y1.8K bug

[breezygirl.livejournal.com]

Those are really interesting. My aunt has been heavily into genaology for about 10 years now and uncoverned a ton of information. Our family was also very concentrated in the PA area and one line came over with William Penn.