ROOTS & BRANCHES

For a decade, Genealogical Publishing Company has printed laminated, four-page primers in a series called “Genealogy at a glance,” many written by leading researchers about topics for which their expertise is well known.

Truthfully, some of these “quick sheets”—topics of which range from all sorts of ethnic genealogy to repositories to particular records groups—are better than others.

Being tied to a format of four pages, there are some that gloss over their topics while others seem to strain to fill the space. Nearly all of them could use better editing so that there’s more consistency to the packages.

These concerns aside, one of the newest “Genealogy at a glance” offerings is a real winner.

“War of 1812 Research,” by Rebecca Whitman Koford as well as the War of 1812 Preserve the Pensions Project (the last major undertaking of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, which is now merged into the National Genealogical Society), “checks all the boxes” as a successful “at a glance” product.

There’s a short summary of the war’s history. Most people can figure out it began in the year 1812 but fewer would know that it ran through 1815 or that one of its prime causes was the impressment of American seaman by the British Navy, claiming them to be deserters.

The U.S. pensions and bounty land applications for these veterans are the prime documents of genealogical value left behind. The quick sheet shows the titles and information about three FamilySearch.org indexes that can help identify these men and their families, including one titled the “United States Remarried Widows Index to Pension Applications, 1887–1942.”

Also detailed is the status of the “Preserve the Pensions Project,” which is digitizing the 7.2 million individual documents of War of 1812 pensions into a database freely available on the subscription database Fold3.com.

The quick sheet also points out that lineage societies and state archives are valuable (some states offered pensions in addition to the federal ones), and there’s a great bibliography of book and online resources to take research further.

Finally, there’s a “Research Checklist for Militiamen” that starts with what you might want to find (such as the soldier’s unit or a signature) and then giving the “what” and “where” to find such information about War of 1812 veterans.

I have several War of 1812 men in my lineage although the most fascinating story involves my ancestor Johannes Kremer’s namesake son, who tried for decades to impersonate his father. The son (who, I might point out, is not my direct-line ancestor—I descend from the elder Johannes’s daughter Catharina) was born 1806, which should have made the case easy to figure out—a pile of 19^th century paperwork notwithstanding!

To order “War of 1812 Research,” go to the publisher’s website at the URL, www.genealogical.com.