From: ghoffman@ucsd.edu (Gary Hoffman)
Newsgroups: soc.roots
Subject: Civil War Soldiers System
Date: 2 Oct 92 22:47:39 GMT
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Reply-To: ghoffman@ucsd.edu
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Organization: IR/PS at UC San Diego
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From a brochure supplied the the Federation of Genealogical Societies:

U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM

The Civil War Soldier System is part of the American Battlefield Protection
Program established by Interior Secretary Manual Lujan, Jr., to preserve
significant American battlefields.

Each year, millions of people visit the Civil War parks, battlefields,
monuments, and cemeteries administered by the National Park Service (NPS).
Visitors often wonder if their ancestors fought or died at the sites they are
visiting. That information exists; but getting it usually requires hours of
research or a written request to the National Archives. The National Park
Service, in cooperation with other interested organizations, is developing a
CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM, which will be available to visitors at most of the
Park Service's Civil War sites by 1994-95. The system will provide answers to
some of their questions and will refer them to other sources for additional
information.

Q What will the Civil War Soldier System be? 

A. The system will include a computerized database containing very basic facts
about soldiers who served on both sides during the Civil War; a list of
regiments in both the Union and Confederate Armies; identifications and
descriptions of some of the major battles of the war; references that identify
the sources of the information in the database; and suggestions for where to
find additional information. The facts about the soldiers will be entered from
records that are indexed to many millions of other documents about Union and
Confederate Civil War soldiers maintained by the National Archives and Records
Administration. Additional information about soldiers, regiments, and battles,
as well as prisoner-of-war records and cemetery records, will be added over
time.

Q. What information will Civil War park visitors be able to obtain from the
system? 

A. Initially, the CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM will contain 5.5 million names of
soldiers who fought in the Civil War, along with such information as whether
the soldier was Confederate or Union and the soldier's regiment and rank.
Historians have determined that approximately 3.5 million soldiers actually
fought in the War; the records contain duplicates because some people served
more than once and names were spelled or represented differently each time.
Some soldiers even used aliases. The system will also identify the 7,000
regiments and units formed during the war; describe the major battles and
skirmishes and identify the participating regiments and units; and provide the
location of some of the soldiers buried in Civil War cemeteries managed by the
Park Service.
Over time, the system will be expanded to provide additional information about
individual soldiers; regimental histories; descriptions of more battles and
skirmishes; more burial locations; and prisoner-of-war records. The system will
identify the sources for all information in the database.

Q. Who is involved in developing the system?

A. The National Park Service is managing the development of the system in
conjunction with the American Battlefield Protection Program established by the
Secretary of the Interior. In addition to the Park Service, the National
Archives, the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), and the Genealogy
Society of Utah (GSU) are contributing to the initial development of the CIVIL
WAR SOLDIERS System. The GSU is developing the data entry software. and will
work with the Park Service on future activities; the National Archives is
supplying microfilm copies of the 5.5 million Master Index record of the Civil
War soldiers; and the FGS will coordinate volunteers to perform the data entry
for the CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS index. Other organizations also will be working with
the Park Service on the project.

Q. When will visitors be able to use the system? 

A. The FGS expects the entry of information for the CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS index to
take about three years. The Park Service plans to have the system erational by
1994-95. At that time most of the NPS-managed Civil War sites will ill be
equipped.with microcomputer to provide information to visitors.
Q How will the System work?  

A. Each NPS-managed Civil War park will have one or more microcomputers
available for use. At some sites a park interpreter may actually operate the
system; at others the visitor may do it. The system will be easy to operate and
will require no special computer knowledge. All the visitor has to know is the
name of a soldier. If the visitor knows only the last name, the system will
provide information about all the soldiers with that last name. (Even if the
visitor knows both the first and the last names, the system may find more than
one record and then display all the types of records that it has for the name
entered.) It will identify and allow access to information about the regiment
in which the selected soldier served and battles in which that regiment fought.
If there is additional information available in the database, the visitor will
be told how to view it. The system will also tell the visitor how to request
copies of the actual National Archives records for their selected soldier
names.

Q.  Where and how, can I obtain information about Civil War soldiers now? 

A.The National Archives headquarters houses all of the original service records
of Civil War soldiers. Until the CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM is operational,
members of the public who want to obtain this information must go to the
Archives or write to the following address and request form NATF-80:  Also,
Bertram Hawthome Groene's Tracing Your Civil War Ancestor (Winston-Salem, N.C.:
John F. Blair, 1973) is an easy-to-read, easy-to-follow guide to sources of
information for anyone who wants to do individual research.

CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS SYSTEM PARTICIPATION INFORMATION

Members of the public may volunteer to participate in this project by entering
the basic data from copies of the National Archives documents. Initially, the
data entry work will be accomplished at specific locations around the country,
such as the National Archives Regional Branches; in the future, data may also
be entered on IBM-compatible home computers

If you would like information on how you can volunteer to perform data entry
for the National Park Service s CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS System, please ... mail [the
following information] to the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The
National Park Service is grateful for your interest in this historic[al]
project.

[Send Name, Address, City, State, and ZIP, Computer experience, and Type of
computer with capacity of disk drives to the following address: Civil War
Soldiers Index, PO Box 3385, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110-3385.]

[Note: Names of Civil War areas managed by the National Park Service not
reproduced here.]