Preserve the Pensions

The Federation of Genealogical Societies, the National Archives, and the genealogical community have started a project to digitize the War of 1812 pension files—a fitting beginning to the bicentennial commemoration of this important war. Many know how information-rich military pension files can be, with comrades and family members providing service, family and personal data. Here are three samples:

Jehu Evans of Mississippi
Porter Howe of Vermont
Henry Lightner of Pennsylvania

This initiative seeks to raise $3.7 million. Preserve the Pensions! seeks to raise the bulk of the funds before the bicentennial of the start of the war and finish digitization before the bicentennial of the war's end in 2015. With 7.2 million images in 180,000 files, there is much digitization to do.

A $25 donation will digitize 50 images -- a $500 donation will digitize 1,000 images!