My husband and I are very interested in researching our local connections to the Civil War. We have gone to a few local cemeteries and gotten the names of soldiers who fought during the war, but we aren't sure where to look to find out more info about them and where they came from. Anyone who might know a website or two that could aide us in our research, please let me know.
It is our dream to help preserve our local history for our children and future generations.|||These may be helpful, but I really don't know!
eHistoryArchive
HistoryNet.com
britanica.com
http://www.nps.gov
http://www.civilwarhome.com/civilwarweap鈥?/a>
Ohio History Central .org
Spartacus School Net .com
American Civil War .com
Naval Historical Center
GlobalSecurity.org
http://www.socyberty.com/History/The-Kor鈥?/a>
Antietam on the Web
strategypage.com
americancivilwar.com
suite101.com
britanica.com
historynet.com
also:
http://govmilitaryrecords.com/|||If the men buried in the local cemeteries are local to the area, you should be able to find information about them from a local historical society. There's one in just about every community in the United States--you just have to figure out where it is. The first place to check is with the librarian at your local library. He or she should be able to help you both with locating local historical societies and should also know if there are any books about the history of your area which touch on the Civil War era.
Your next stop should be the local college or university. I know that "local" is relative, and you may just have a junior college, but that's a fine place to go. You can either speak to a librarian there, or you can ask if they have a history department, and speak to someone there. Both should be able to direct you.
Going a bit higher up the ladder (if it wasn't already covered in the previous step), there should be a state university which has a really, really big library, and which has the private collections of people from your state. Often, it's the oldest public university in a state, but sometimes it isn't--sometimes it's the one which had an in-house scholar who managed to get all the materials moved to their location. A bit of research and a few phone calls will help you track it down. What you are looking for is private collections dealing with the Civil War era.
Often, just a visit to your local library will do it. If you live where the libraries are very small and not well-funded, you may need to go to a larger system associated with a bigger city or with a county. The important thing to remember is that even at the state university level, you will be able to get information about the soldiers from your local level. And no matter how small your community is, do start with the local librarian--people don't realize how much librarians know, and how well they are trained to find information. In smaller communities, the librarian may have been in that position for the last 30 years, and may have a good idea about where private documents are held, etc... That's why that should be your first stop.
One other place to check is your local newspaper's morgue or, if you are lucky, their microfilm vaults. I live in Utah, and we pretty much missed the Civil War out this way, but our oldest newpaper has microfilm going back to when the newspaper was founded. As they modernized, they simply put the really old stuff on microfiche, and they have the films and readers at the county library. When I worked at the library, I looked up information from the WWI era more than once. Since you must be in the East somewhere if you are looking into the Civil War (and it doesn't matter if it's North or South where you are), I am certain that there was a newspaper around during the war. The same newspaper may not be around now, but someone will have bought them out, most likely, and will have kept their morgues. Since you have names and dates from the cemetery, it should be very easy to find more information on the men in a newspaper, even if you find yourself in a basement room looking through dusty boxes.
As for starting out, the best thing to do is try googling the names you have. Often, private people will have done research and shared it on the web. I have found regiment information for people before just by doing web searches. I would say that and contacting people in your local area would be the best places to start. There used to be a site called Civil War Gateway, which had a gazillion links to all sorts of useful information, but I can't seem to find it now.
Oh, one more place to look is to check with your local authorities and find out if there's a website for vital statistics. Civil War Era names and such are no longer protected, so if there is one in your area, you may be able to do research there.
It's a big undertaking, but it should be a fun one. Best of luck!
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