As 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, the Reference staff at Archives 1 want to provide a glimpse of some of the series that we have in our custody relating to this conflict.  The following list may assist researchers who want to locate records pertaining to the War of 1812.  Please note that this list [...]

One of the most frequent kinds of research requests we receive concerns gaining access to military veterans’ service records. To do our part to commemorate Veterans Day tomorrow, we’ve asked Theresa Fitzgerald of the Archives’ National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis to write a post on everything you ever wanted to know about accessing [...]

Many of our NARA colleagues are historians and researchers themselves. In this post, written by Lopez Matthews, we have the opportunity to learn about a few current research projects our staff members are undertaking. If you’d like more information on any of these projects, leave a note in the comments and we’ll make sure the [...]

Our guest blogger today is Dennis Edelin, Chief, Forms Section at Archives I. On September 26, 2011, the National Archives began a preservation re-boxing project.  The purpose of the project is to re-box the nearly 900,000 Solider Certificate (“SC”) Civil War and Later pension application files in our custody.  Please note, these records are not leaving [...]

Today’s post is written by Denise Henderson. A few months ago, I was asked to locate a record about Pat Garrett, the famous sheriff who killed Billy the Kid in 1881 when cowboys and cattle thieves made the West wild and dangerous and a place in serious need of law enforcement.  Understanding the index to, [...]

Today’s post is the first in an occasional series where we will highlight some of the work of our volunteers. Janet Hodges is a volunteer with the Volunteer Office at the National Archives at College Park.  First, this isn’t about genealogy; I don’t like genealogy.  I leave that exercise to my daughter who enjoys spending [...]