View single post by javal1
 Posted: Sun May 1st, 2011 04:18 pm
PM Quote Reply Full Topic
javal1
Grumpy Geezer


Joined: Thu Sep 1st, 2005
Location: Tennessee USA
Posts: 1491
Status: 
Offline
Mana: 
 This is how I got my ancestor's records. Just a caution though - there are times it can cost more. Back when I requested my GGGF's I think it was $15. Got a letter saying that due to the volume of paper involved it would be $65. Paid it and received hundreds of pages. Turns out he fought from the end of the war until the start of WW1 with the pension board. He claimed he was shot in the shin - gov't claimed it wasn't  a gunshot wound. So he fought for decades for an extra $2 a month he would have received if he had been "wounded in battle". The records contained every Dr.'s statement. witness deposition, gov't finding, etc. - hence the $65. 

 

Request an NATF Form 86

Get records from the National Archives by requesting a NATF “Form 86“. The National Archives contains the “Compiled Military Service Record” or CMSR. Obtaining an NATF Form 86 lets you petition the CMSR to release to you the service records for your genealogical forebearers.

The address to request such a form is below.

National Archives and Records Administration
8th Street & Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C., 20408

To obtain a Compiled Military Service Record, you’ll need to pay $25 per paper record. So be sure that you’re getting the records for someone in your genealogy, before you request these records.

Information inside a CMSR includes such things as enlistment date, military release date, date of death, prisoner of war stats, hospital rolls and so on.