04 May 2008

Persistence pays

On Thursday the Genealogy Databases Posted or Updated Recently page for Ancestry.com showed a new database on US Army, Register of Enlistments, 1798-1914. As usual when I find a new database, but without great hope, I entered Northwood looking for my runaway great-great-grandfather. I found him!

He first enlisted in the US Army, about the last place I thought of looking, in New York. It was before the birth of his second child in England. He served in Texas, Kansas and Missouri where he died and was buried in a military cemetery.

Evidently he never contacted his family back in England. The opportunity to claim an inheritance if he put in an appearance didn't tempt him back, if he knew of it, and when his children married they stated he was deceased, even though he lived to 1896.

That find alone justified subscribing to Ancestry's World Edition.

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