The War of 1812 began on the heels of the American Revolution and had the new nation scrambling once again for sovereignty over Great Britain. Having won their independence in 1783, the former colonists now found themselves facing British troops hoping to keep them from moving further westward into North America. Enlisting the help of several indigenous tribes also eager to keep the restless settlers from taking more land, Great Britain’s troops began an assault on America from both land and sea.
In 1807, the Royal Navy began to interfere with American trade with France, which at the time, was at war with Britain. At the same time, they began to forcibly kidnap men they claimed to be British and put them to work at sea. This practice, called impressment, was illegal, but the Navy needed men because they were fighting Napoleon, and they considered any person born in Britain to still be a British citizen, regardless of where they were currently living.
("A Scene on Lake Ontario—United States sloop of war General Pike, commodore Chauncey, and the British sloop of war, Wolf, Sir James Yeo, Preparing for Action, September 28, 1813," published by Shelton & Kensett, Cheshire, Connecticut, 1 November 1813; public domain; online at Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_sloop_of_war_General_Pike,_commodore_Chauncey,_and_the_British_sloop_of_war_Wolf,_Sir_James_Yeo,_Preparing_for_action,_September_28,_1813.jpg)
This situation grew worse when Britain created an effective blockade just off America’s shores, which seriously impaired trade. At the same time, there was conflict between the two countries and Native Americans arising from the movement of settlers into what had been the Northwest Territory, the Indiana Territory, the Louisiana Territory, and eastern Canada. By the time war was declared on 1 June 1812, everyone’s tempers were at a peak. Battles began to rage throughout the United States and eastern Canada. In August of 1814, British troops burned Washington, D.C., but subsequent American victories in Baltimore, Plattsburgh, New York, and, finally, New Orleans, led to the Americans winning this devastating war. In addition to thousands of lives lost and property destroyed, the War of 1812 was catastrophic for Native Americans, who were now pushed to lands west of the Mississippi River.
Men who fought in the War of 1812 left a bountiful paper trail, most of which is held by the National Archives (NARA). In 2010, the former Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) began a project to work with NARA to digitize those records. When the FGS merged with the National Genealogical Society (NGS) in 2020 and the COVID pandemic began, the project was placed on hold, but recently the NGS announced an exciting new relaunch.
Next Phase of the Project: Bounty Land Files
The first phase of the project, which is almost complete, concentrated on digitizing and publishing pension records. These records are online at Fold3 and are free to view. Now, NGS has announced that they will partner with Ancestry and NARA to start a second phase which “will fund the preservation, indexing, digitization, and public availability of the Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, ca. 1800–ca. 1900, . . . totaling over 3,300 cubic feet of records.” The project will also include “Case Files of Bounty-Land Applications of Indians Based on Services Between 1812 and 1855,” another twenty-eight cubic feet of records. This enormous undertaking is scheduled to begin this coming January (2024) and will likely take about three years to complete.
Preserving the pension records in phase one cost about three million dollars, most acquired by fundraising. NGS anticipates the second phase to cost about $2.5 million and will begin soliciting funds very soon. Noted genealogist David Rencher, former head of the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City and now the NGS development committee chair, noted that “These records offer significant evidence for tracing early American military families.” Soon, they will be much easier to access.
Missouri and Illinois, although not yet states, were both heavily involved in the War of 1812. If you think your ancestors might have participated in the War of 1812 from this area, you will want to know about the set of books, The War of 1812 in Missouri, based on compiled works by Robert Parkin and revised and enhanced by local genealogists Ann Carter Fleming, Ruth Ann Abels Hager, and Ilene Kanfer Murray, which is available in our secure online store. You can get all the details in our blog post from 17 April 2023.
For more information . . .
"War of 1812," Wikipedia, updated 2 July 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812
"War of 1812: A Resource Guide," written by Ken Drexler, Library of Congress, updated 16 June 2022, https://guides.loc.gov/war-of-1812/introduction
"War of 1812," written by Jeanne T. Heidler and David S. Heidler, Encyclopedia Britannica, updated 2 July 2023, https://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-1812
“War of 1812 Pension Files Digitization Moves Forward!” by Jenny Ashcraft, Fold3, 25 May 2023, https://blog.fold3.com/war-of-1812-pension-files-digitization-moves-forward/
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