Here’s a little known solution to a common genealogical problem: You find an ancestor who served in the War of 1812, but there is no indication that he filed for a pension file. Disappointed, you give up on finding the genealogical information that could have been waiting for you on that soldier.
Don’t give up though! There’s a good chance that your ancestor filed to get bounty land from the government instead of a pension. These bounty land application files are only at the National Archives, they’re not online anywhere, and they can have great genealogical information in them.
Case in point: this application from William Christy and his wife Mary. In her application she states that they were living in Trumbull County, Ohio at the time, but married in 1802 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. She goes on to explain that no record of her marriage exists, and her maiden name was Mary Henderson.
Some of these are indexed at https://www.fold3.com/browse/247/h_5UoXzIz. Let us know if you find your ancestor in there-- we can get that file for you at the National Archives. And if he's not in there, let us know that too. We can keep looking. There are applications that are on file, even though they're not indexed yet. Let us help you get your ancestor’s military files at the National Archives. We go to DC so you don’t have to!
