The Micajah Pettaway Chapter met Feb. 21 at Braswell Memorial Library. Visiting prospective members Ginger Hayden, Annette Coggins and Edith Whitfield were welcomed.

Regent Dottie Barrett and Tracy Thompson, the local history/genealogy librarian at Braswell Memorial Library, provided information on sources to research our Revolutionary War ancestor.

Most good sources published in book form are abstracts and transcriptions of original records. The top three abstracted are pensions, bounty land grants and rosters. “The Roster of Soldiers from N.C. in the American Revolution” book is the basic starting point. It has an appendix with a collection of miscellaneous records by the N.C. Daughters of the American Revolution.

Because North Carolina gave continental land to bounty hunters, land grants still are important. Some kept their bounty while others sold it. Many in the Revolutionary War got bounty land grants. Mr. A.B. Pruitt of Whitakers has done “Glasgow Land Fraud Papers; 1783-1800: N.C. Revolutionary War Bounty Land in Tennessee,” a big set of books on bounty land grants which include North Carolina. They can provide a lot of good information.

“The Historical Records of Virginia Revolution” book has a lot about the Virginia Revolution. Since many people left North Carolina and went to Tennessee, the library has a lot of Tennessee sources. Many are interested in the “Colonial Records of N.C.” books that were indexed and contain a lot of rosters. All were created on the state level before and after the Revolutionary War.

The battle land grants about state governments cover several different states. They have more in-depth sources for North Carolina volume sets. It is a good resource on sea land grants. There is a Virginia version of this which has Tennessee resources.

Sources mentioned above are the most important ones.

However, “N.C. Revolutionary Army Accounts” is a huge set of books. Most North Carolina records are abstracted.

It includes the pay and financial support for the patriotic effort. Many can find someone not found in other sources.

• ONLINE SOURCES: Heritage Quest is one. On Braswell Memorial Library’s website, use your library card number, not your password. First, go into NCLIVE where they have different data bases broken down in different categories. Click History, then Genealogy, and Heritage Quest. It has “Selected Records from Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files” and has magazine articles.

On http://revwarapps.org find 136 Roster Transcriptions and 15,768 Pension Applications or Bounty Land Claims including 470 transcripts made from the online collection of the Library of Congress.

One can have a personal subscription to www.fold3.com, great for North Carolina, Southern states and Revolutionary War prisoners.

“Ancestral Library Addition” is the Library’s version of Ancestry.com. They have put people’s family trees on this version, too. On the DAR Internet you will find “Is that right?” and “Genealogy at a Glance.”

Data bases listed on www.ancestry.com in the Revolutionary rolls are some Revolutionary Membership Applications.

Another is the State Archives Library project that puts original records on line.

• OTHER SOURCES: Think about newspapers. During the Revolutionary War there were not many newspapers operating in North Carolina. When the government had money to give pensions, one had to prove his service in order to get a pension. Some had lost their records. In an 1830 ad in the Edgecombe County “Citizens of N.C.” newspaper, Frances Patterson in Mississippi stated he enlisted in Edgecombe County in the 24th Regiment “Y,” served 26 years, and was taken prisoner at Camden. He asked any person knowing of his military services to tell the Tarboro Postmaster.

The Register of Deeds offices in local courthouses contain rosters of veterans and other military records. At the N.C. State Archives in Raleigh records go back to early colonial records. Sources that are open books for the Revolutionary War patriot are County Court Minutes. Edgecombe Court Minutes 1775-1785 are abstracted in a book but not all have been. Remember the resourceful census records.

• HOW TO RESEARCH? Details can be found in the “North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History, 2nd Edition book, edited by Helen Leary. (Braswell Library has edition #1.) It covers land records, too.

Regent Dottie announced cheerful cards will be placed on veteran’s trays by DAR members.