Veterans Data May Be Helpful

Have you accessed veterans records in compiling your family history? No? Maybe you just need to know more about American veterans records.

In 1776, the first national pension law for our newly formed country was passed. It promised half pay for life if the veteran was so disabled he could no longer earn a living. In 1789, a pension law was enacted to include healthy veterans, too.

In 1849 the paperwork was moved from the War Department to the newly formed Pension Department.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to emphasize our duty to care for our veterans and their dependents. Following the Civil War, a law was passed that provided residency care (as opposed to hospital care) for disabled soldiers of war.

(Today’s Soldiers Home in Washington, D.C., is sponsored with a 50-cent deduction taken from each paycheck of every man or woman in any branch of service.)

In 1930 the Veterans Administration was established by Congress to coordinate affairs pertaining to war veterans. After World War II, the VA was separated into the departments of medical care and pensions, and education.

Genealogists can obtain military information on their ancestors, if it isn’t detrimental to the memory of the veteran. And the data cannot be prejudicial to the interests of any living person or to the interests of the government. But that’s not likely to be a problem.

The information is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs, or in the case of inactive records, from the U.S. Archivist in Washington, D.C.

All correspondence between a veteran and the Department of Veteran Affairs is compiled in a “VA claim folder,” with the exception of health-care benefits.

If a veteran ever claimed benefits, a claim folder was created to hold the paper work - and that information is considered public information and copies are available for the asking.

When a veteran applied for benefits, whether for compensation resulting from an injury or illness that was service-related, or for benefits resulting from a nonservice connection pension, the information was stored in his VA claim folder.

Genealogical gold nuggets that might be found in your great-grandfather’s folder could include birth, marriage and death certificates, divorce decrees and marital history, along with his employment papers. Whatever documentation was necessary to support a veteran’s claim was relegated to the claim folder.

There might be applications for educational benefits - time periods when the veteran attended school and the name and location of the institution.

You might also find Service Medical Records, a veteran’s complete military health record. It typically includes physical examinations, medical history, dental exams and records, and outpatient medical and dental treatments.

You might get an idea of just what your ancestor looked like by reading the physical description taken when he enlisted. Think you’re short? Check out the height of that Civil War grandpa. He might have been even shorter. Are there other similarities? You can learn the color of his hair, eyes, complexion.

The file does not, however, include inpatient treatment records, finance records or the Military Personnel File.

And, the claim folder might very well contain the veteran’s Certificate of Discharge (DD214).

Now that you know what’s available, how to get at it becomes the question.

How to access veterans records will be continued next week.