Researching American Revolutionary War: Pension Files

HOW TO OBTAIN A REVOLUTIONARY WAR PENSION FILE

How you obtain a Revolutionary War and Bounty Land Warrants pension file, will probably depend on where you live.

If you live near the US National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, DC; then you can get a copy there when you go to research.

If you live near one of NARA's Regional Records Services Facilities, you can obtain a copy from microfilm at those locations. Use of the film is free. Copies are usually twenty-five cents per page.

The NARA Regional Records Services Facilities:

Boston

Pittsfield, MA

New York City

Bayonne, NJ

City Center, Philadelphia

Northeast Philadelphia

Atlanta (East Point), GA

Chicago

Dayton, OH

Kansas City, MO

Lee's Summit, MO

Fort Worth

Denver

Laguna Niguel, CA

San Francisco (San Bruno), CA

Seattle

Anchorage, AK

For street, mail, and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers of all of the Regional Records Services Facilities:

Go to Regional Archives Facilities List

When using the Revolutionary War and Bounty Land Warrants microfilm, pay particular attention to which microfilm publication you are viewing at that facility. The M804 publication contains all documents found in the soldier's file.

There is a second microfilm publication for Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrants, M805. This publication contains only those documents found in the first part of the soldier's file which are deemed of genealogical value.

Some Regional Facilities may have M805 rather than M804.

A thing to remember about this collection is that there was a fire in 1800 at the War Department and all records were destroyed. Any veteran who filed prior to 1800 has no file in this collection, rather a card which provides his name, home state, and occasionally his unit (s).

Write to the National Archives and Records Administration
for a copy of the Revolutionary War and Bounty Land pension file.

To get the details about the forms and to order the forms by e-mail go to:

Forms for Military Service and Family History Records

On your request be sure to put "Please copy all of the file"; if it is important to you to see all of the file.

Family History Center

Another source is to find a Family History Center of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in your area.

All 80,000 Revolutionary War and Bounty Land pension files have been microfilmed, and are available to be ordered from the Family History Library at Salt Lake City.

Rental of the film is around $3.50, depending on where you are located. You can then copy the pension file with their microfilm copier yourself.....and KNOW that you copied it all.

Most files are filmed in two parts.... the part which was thought to have contained papers with genealogical interest... and a second part of "not so important papers". These two parts are separated by a section header sheet.

You will want to see both parts, and decide for yourself what is important.

If you think that you might want to access the pension file through a Family History Center. The Windows version of the Library Catalog is available on-line.

Go to Library Catalog

A quick way of finding all the films on the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications would be to use the "Film/Fiche Number Search" .

There are 2, 670 rolls of film and the first roll has the film number 970001.
Type in 970001 and you will then see that the first roll covers Aaron, William - Abbot, Ezra

The first name is the first pension file on the roll of film, and the second name is the last name on the roll of film.

Keep going until you find the roll of film which would contain the file of your pensioner.

A slower way to getting to the Pension film numbers is to choose "Place Search". In-put United States and see that there are 881 topics in all.

The topic you want is #614 "United States - Military records - Revolution, - 1775-1783 Pensions".

Those of you who have nearby access to a FHC will enjoy being able to do this research yourself. Revolutionary War pension files are usually filled with good genealogical information.

For the addresses of the Family History Centers:

Go to Family History Centers Worldwide

Send comments and mail to

Carolyn Kolzow

Last update by Carolyn Kolzow on 08/11/05

Initial first revision made with much appreciation for help from:
Gary Fulton, Archives Technician
Military Reference
National Archives-Southeast Region
East Point, GA (Atlanta)
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