Tagged: civil war

Genealogy: Civil War Ancestors

The American Civil War has been referred to the Civil War, War of the Rebellion, and the War Between the States. Whatever it’s called, many genealogists want to know if they had ancestors who fought in it. Today’s post will discuss ways to learn whether any of your ancestors wore the blue or the gray (or both!) between 1861 and 1865. To identify a potential Civil War soldier, determine his birthdate. Most soldiers and sailors were between 18 and 30 years old, and would have been born between 1831 and 1846. However, some of them could have been as young as 10 or as old as 70, so that widens the span to between 1791 and 1854. If your potential soldier died between April 1861 and June 1865 in a Southern state, or he was from a Southern state and died in a different Southern state, this may indicate that...