Uncovering Your Veteran Ancestors
I am a proud veteran of the United States Army who comes from a military family. My father served in the Navy and my younger siblings also joined the Army. I love searching for records of my ancestors who also served. Even if you’re not a veteran, please take the time to acknowledge your family members who answered the call to serve our country. Hopefully, you have military photos or possibly discharge papers for your military ancestors. One important point to keep in mind, having a Military Draft Registration Card does not automatically mean they were drafted or served. It just means they registered. You must search the records to see if they actually served.
In 2024, Ancestry.com started adding the Korean War draft cards to their database. It will take several years to input all of the 10 million cards covering the span of years of the conflict. If your ancestor was born between 1900-1936, it’s possible they may have served in the Korean War.
Draft registration cards provide birthdates, next of kin and their signature. The wonderful thing about a World War II Draft Registration Card is the second page, which provides a description of the person. It gives their race, height, weight as well as the color of their eyes, hair and skin. Any additional identifying marks are also noted. If you do not have a photo of your veteran, this description could help you imagine or develop an AI image of the person.
One important note regarding WWII is something referred to as the “Old Man’s Draft” or registration. The government required older men to register for the draft, along with the younger men, in order to determine how many men would be left behind to do any needed work in their communities.
World War I registrations will tell you the citizenship status, marital status and number of children. For African Americans, the left bottom corner is clipped so the military could easily identify and send them to segregated units. They often listed the race of Blacks as African or Ethiopian. It did not mean they were born in Africa or their native land was Ethiopia. It was just the designation used for African Americans.
The Civil War pension file for my great-great grandfather, Anthony Shaw, was a gold mine. I never knew anything about his file until cousin Sharon Styles shared it with me. The pension index on Ancestry.com listed him as Anthony Tisdale alias Anthony Shaw who served in Company G, Unit 104 of the United States Colored Infantry aka the Colored Troops. He filed for a disability pension on November 8, 1897. His pension was not approved until April 1, 1908 in the amount of $8.00 per month. At the time of his death in 1942 he was receiving $100 per month. As a disabled veteran I can say, when it comes to approving a disability pension request, the military has not changed at all.
The information on Ancestry or Family Search will give you the application and certificate number, but you must request a copy of the entire original file, online or in-person. In 2016 while in DC, Sharon went to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to request the file. It contained nearly 200 pages and a rare find, a photo of Anthony Shaw.
The file included his deposition which provided his birth date, birth place, former enslaver, parents, siblings, wife and children. The military also interviewed his family members, friends and fellow soldiers in Florida. This is information I would have never found otherwise.
Reading these words of my great-great grandfather was indescribable, “I was born a slave on William Tisdale’s plantation in Williamsburg District, South Carolina.” He went on to say, “I enlisted in the U.S. Army under the name of Anthony Tisdale and that was my name before I went into the army, I changed my name after I came out of the army and when I registered. My father’s name was Shaw and I took his name when I registered after the war.”
For African Americans, name changes were very common. Sharon also obtained a copy of the pension file for James Manigault [Manigo] who also enlisted under a different surname. Manigault [Manigo] was one of the 435 Freedmen who migrated from South Carolina to Marlin in 1867. His 100-page file contains detailed information about his family, enslaver and military service. If anyone in the Manigo Family would like a copy of the file, please contact me. honey_be_2001@yahoo. com