Kathryn wrote:
> Week after next I will be spending afternoons at the National Archives
(while
> the kids are at a weeklong sleepaway camp).

> I have at least two major brickwalls that online research, hands-on City
of
> Norfolk Courthouse and LVa records and last summer's week at the DAR
Library
> did not completely knock down.

> Would any of you have suggestions on what areas at the Archives might
help?


Kathryn, one can spend a lot of time at NARA and accomplish nothing, if one
does not go "prepared." You're obviously trying to do that. But you need to
do two at least things *beyond* the general suggestions that have been made.

1.
Beg, borrow, or buy a copy of *Guide to Genealogical Research in the
National Archives,* 3rd ed., Anne Bruner Eales & Robert M. Kvasnicka, eds.
(Washington: National Archives Trust Fund Board, 2000). It's indispensable
for NARA research and should give you a number of ideas, as well as specific
guidance for those possibilities. For example (since you mentioned
confederate records for a naval captain), p. 164, section 6.4 discusses
"Confederate Navy and Marine Corps Records"--including service records,
hospital and prison records, shipping articles, muster rolls and pay rolls,
and a Confederate Navy subject file. It also identifies several microfilm
collections that have been created from some of this material. This material
is *not* the common fare you get by ordering a "compiled service record."

But no, this guide is not one of the several NARA guides that have been put
online at NARA's website for free perusal. This one was not published with
taxpayer funds, so it is commercially sold. The price is cheap, cheap, cheap
compared to the amount of time you would waste onsite if you don't know,
specifically, what to look for.

2.
Ask yourself, What would have gotten this ancestor involved with the FEDERAL
government?  You've suggested Civil War pensions for one of the ancestors;
but as you've been told, Confederates received pensions from the former
Confederate states in which they resided when they reached pension age. (The
Union wasn't about to pay those who fought against them!)  So you have to
think beyond this. For example:

Your "Old Navy captain":
Was he, perhaps, in the service of the U.S. before the Civil War? Chapter 6,
"Naval and Marine Service Records," in the "Genie Guide" (cited above) will
give you *many* suggestions that go beyond whatever compiled service record
you may have already.

Your immigrant to Norfolk:
Might he have been a merchant seaman, for whom a seaman's protection
certificate or a crew list might be available. Might he have been employed
by U.S. customs at the port? -- or by one of the government agencies doing
work there in the harbor? Again, the Genie Guide has numerous
suggestions--as well as references to "preliminary inventories" you can get
from NARA that will describe an endless array of unmicrofilmed material
dealing with most record groups that are of value to genealogy.

Your Confederate ancestor:
You badly need a copy of Elizabeth Bethel's *Preliminary Inventory of the
War Department Collection of Confederate Records,* PI  101 (Washington:
National Archives, 1957). (A reprint, with an index and a cross-reference to
all microfilm made from these records--both prepared by Craig R. Scott,
CGRS, a retired naval captain--is available from Willow Bend Books,
Westminster, Md.) This guide should give you *many* suggestions for
materials to examine on-site, holdings that go ***way*** beyond the routine
"compiled service records" that we order from NARA.


Good luck!
Elizabeth

===============================
Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
Author, *Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the
    Family Historian*
Editor, *National Genealogical Society Quarterly*
Editor, *Professional Genealogy: A Manual for
     Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers & Librarians*

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