Skip to main content

Entering Civil War Ancestors in Legacy Family Tree

In the Legacy Virtual Users Group (LVUG) on Google+ we were going to talk about data entry for our veterans in our month LVUG meeting but internet problems prevented us from having our meeting so I decided to post my data entry here.

We are going to take a look at Joseph Eugene Thomas; he is my husband's third great grandfather. ( I have blogged about his wife Elizabeth Jane Savage Thomas and I blogged about Joseph and shared his Civil War timeline.)  

While researching Joseph I added whatever I could find about his time in the Civil War to Evernote.  From this information I was able to put the timeline (shown in image below) together to help me understand my information better and I was able to add a lot of information to Legacy.  The timeline was created in OneNote (shhh...don't tell) and the cells in the table are able to be edited.

Screen shot from Evernote showing notes for Joseph Thomas,
Below you can see Joseph's family in the Family view in Legacy.


In the image below is Joseph's Individual Information screen.


First, I utilize tags in Legacy.  They help to keep me organized.

  • Tag #1 is telling that he is in Jason's direct line
  • Tag #4 is telling me that I need to add his Find A Grave event.
  • Tag #9 is telling me that something needs to be done and if I look in my to do list I will see that I have a note about locating him in the 1850 Census and another about finding his birth date.

The Events I have recorded in Legacy are:

  1. Military -- 2 Sep 1864 Enlisted in Co. H 198th PA Inf.
  2. Wounded in Action -- 29 Mar 1865 Battle at Lewis' Farm.
  3. Military -- 12 Mar 1866 Widow's Pension Index.
  4. Article -- 3 Sep 1931 an article in the Benton Argus about his family visiting his grave for the first time.
  5. Find A Grave -- I need to finish this and add my source.
I use a Military event for any general military information.  Wounded in action of killed in action are used when they are needed.  I use events for everything (even the blog post I did about Joseph in Jan got an event.)

How do you enter your's Veteran's information??

_______________________________________________________________________________

Here are the details on his relatives visiting his grave for the first time:

The Benton Argus, Benton, Pennsylvania published 3 Sep 1931

Relatives of Joseph Thomas Locate Grave

Joshua E. Thomas and his son, Norton J. Thomas, of Forks, have returned from a motor trip to the Sourthern states.  While enroute they located the grave of Joseph Thomas, a Civil War veteran who was killed in the battle of Five Forks.  It is the first time any of Joseph Thomas' relatives have ever seen his grave.  He is buried at Hopewell, Virginia, in a cemetery that is maintained by the government.  Joshua Thomas is a son of Joseph Thomas, adn it was a great satisfaction to him to know and see where his father was buried.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

T is for To Do List Revisited

In L is for To Do List  I showed you how to access the to do list; this time I want to show you my to do list. The to do list in Legacy really helps to keep me on track and remember where my train of thought was when I was doing research. {My screen shots look a little different today; I had to reinstall Legacy again!} The image below shows what the to do list looks like when you first open it from the family view; it shows both open and close to dos. By going to the sort order tab you can choose how your to dos are displayed. Clicking on the filter options tab will let you filter your to do list.  The one I use most often is under status to show all of the open to do items. The image below shows a to do item for the 1870 Census.  I did not find the family where I thought they would be so I made a note of that and where to search next.  I will continue this process until I can close this to do. In the image above you will see that I use...

Marine Casualty Card Database

While I was writing Top 10 Blog Posts for 2019 I discovered that my top post was US Marine Casualty Cards from 2014.  Wow!  {There is also an update to the original post here  where I show some more information that was sent to me.}  I went back to read the post and discovered that the links no longer work.  I did a little digging and found a link to the Casualty Card Database at the Marine Corps University website.  At this site you click on the war you want to search and download a searchable spreadsheet.  Once you locate your Marine you send an email to request the card.  There are also links to download information about what the codes mean on the cards. I also found that you can search the U.S. Marine Corps Casualty Index, 1940-1958 , at Ancestry.com.  It gives the casualty date, type, unit, and service number.  There is a link to go to another website from the Ancestry database but that link does not work. {I believe...

George Washington Hunter

There is a lot I don't know but here is what I know about my 2nd great-grandfather. George Washington Hunter is the son of William Wallace and Priscilla Cragle Hunter. George was born in 1854 and died in 1927 George married Mary McMelon abt 1880 and they had Jonah, Sarah, Iva Pearl, and Theron. Mary died in 1903 and in Jan 1904 he married my 2nd great-grandmother Florence M. Lewis Myers.  Together, George and Florence had my great-grandfather Willard Milton Hunter. In 1870 George was 16 years old and he was a farm laborer according to the 1870 census; he was living in Union, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania with his parents. In 1880 George was 26 years old and he was married to Mary (she was only 17 years old).  George's occupation is a teamster and they are living in Hunlock Township. Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. In 1900 George was 46 years old and he was married to Mary who is 36 years old.  George is listed as a farmer owning his own farm. Geor...