Military Genealogy Records for Free – Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System

November 14, 2009 | By Kimberly In Military Records |

It’s always exciting to think that you might have a Civil War ancestor (or two) hiding in your tree. Was he a great hero who led his troops as an officer or perhaps served a brave infantry man? If you do, then there is a wide variety of information about that soldier that you can uncover – much of it for free! There are a few different places to look online but today, I am going to talk about the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System (I will call it CWSS for short). The CWSS is a database provided by the National Park Service and it contains some very basic information about your Civil War ancestor, whether they fought for the Union or the Confederacy. There were over 6.3 millions soldier and sailors from 44 states that fought in the Civil War, so this free genealogy database is a wonderful resource to track down your military ancestor.

How did they assemble this database? During the Civil War, the soldiers’ names were written down on muster rolls every couple of weeks. In the 1880s, the Department of the Army painstakingly went through each of these muster rolls to write down every name that appeared in order to determine who was eligible for a pension.

The basic information you can find about your Civil War ancestor in this database is his name, side he fought for, rank at the time of enlistment, rank at the time he left the service, his regiment and company number, the microfilm number of the original document and any miscellaneous notes there might be.

In addition to the information about the individual soldier or sailor, the CWSS also provides histories of all the Union and Confederate regiments, access to descriptions of hundreds of significant battles. This is a wonderful way to track where your ancestor was at any given time during the War and what events he participated in. In the future, the National Park Service also plans to add the names of all the soldiers buried in each of the 14 National Cemeteries.

I found my great-great-great grandfather’s record in the CWSS. This database is what told me which regiment and company he was in. A piece of information I didn’t have before! He was an infantryman for the Union Army and now I know which battles he was in. The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is another “must-stop” website as you search for your ancestors. It’s a wonderful free genealogy resource for you to tap into.

photo credit: johnwilson1969