Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 7 – Using Google Books

This post is the seventh in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

Looking at the USAHEC research bibliography, some of the books the were referenced were out-of-print and might be located at Google books.

So I searched Google books books.google.com using the search terms: Grand Army of the Republic

The search results showed several of the volumes of the Journal of the National Encampment, Grand Army of the Republic. They also listed the Detroit Post No. 384, Grand Army of the Republic. There were also records of the State Encampments that were held in addition to the National Encampments.

Then I combined the search term “Grand Army of the Republic” to find the publications and added a surname, Tingue.

Search terms: Grand Army of the Republic tingue

One of the results was an Abstract of General Orders and Proceedings for the 45th Annual Encampment held in 1911.

 

 

On page 258 there was a Tingue in a Mortuary Table

This entry was for Tingue, L. and showed his place and date of death (12/17/1910, Little Valley, NY), as well as the Number of his GAR Post (246). His Company and Regiment is listed as Co. B., 15th NYVI, which is incorrect. It should be Co. B. 154th.

This is a collateral relative, William Linden Tingue.

From the New York State list of posts, discussed in the third post of this series, GAR Post 246 is:

 

I downloaded the book, and included the page number and the surname Tingue in the filename.

 

 

I tried to search for his brothers, and find their posts. I do know their death years.

So I searched for: Abstract of General Orders and Proceedings of the Annual Encampment

I will want to search for the one held in 1913 for a death in 1912.

The search was for: Abstract of General Orders and Proceedings of the Annual Encampment 1913

I did not find those documents. They may not be online at Google Books. Given that there may be errors in the optical character recognition, I substituted different terms for the surname, such as the residence. Using the post number was the least satisfying as page numbers and other instances of the number were found in the text.

These searches did not yield the publication for 1913, so I tried a search from the Google search page. There were results in recently published books that were not available in full format in pdf.

Another website to search is the Internet Archive.

 

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 6 – Records at USAHEC

This post is the sixth in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

If you have seen the other tutorials on this website, you will know that a good way to locate the resources at U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) is to locate the a finding aid.

Start at the Library Guides for USAWC Graduates and All Other Patrons.

 

In the Library Catalog and Digital Collections box, you can search both the Library Catalog and our Digital Collections.

Search: grand army of the republic

 

 

There are several results that may be worth investigating.

 

 

For now I will look for the Reference Bibliography, by adding the keyword reference.

 

 

You can view the Grand Army of the Republic Reference Bibliography at this link. You can download it to your computer.

http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16635coll9/id/2569/rec/11

 

 

From this reference bibliography, we learn that there is a Grand Army of the Republic Collection Archive. It contains the Journal of the National Encampment from many of the annual encampments. At the very bottom is a list of the posts from which the archives holds materials.

Several of the books in the General Sources are older, so it might be worth looking in Google Books or The Internet Archives for them.

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 5 – Records on Ancestry.com

This post is the fifth in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

To use the GAR records on Ancestry.com, start at the Card Catalog. From the Search menu, select Card Catalog.

 

 

In the Keyword(s) field type: Grand Army of the Republic.

 

 

Click the Search button.

 

 

From the results list, you can select an individual database to search.

Click on New York, Grand Army of the Republic Records 1866-1931.

 

 

I scanned the listings in the Browse this collection section and did not see the Gowanda Chapter for the ancestor. When I used surnames from the family in the Last Name field there were no results. So, I entered a county of residence.

 

 

This search returned the names of all the individuals who were listed as living in Cattaraugus County, New York in these records. I will use other techniques to search for Tingues in the databases, just in case there were issues with indexing.

Good luck with your searches!

 

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 4 – Records Project of the SUVCW

This post is the fourth in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, mentioned in a previous blog post about the GAR, have an ongoing project to populate a database with the locations of available GAR records for every chapter. It is the GAR Records Project.

From that page, you can select “Explore the GAR by state”.

I clicked on New York.

Following the other links on the page led me to some interesting websites. There is a website with digitized records for one post. Another website contains information about GAR posts in New York organized by county.

There was a listing for the GAR chapter in Gowanda.

There is also a link to a listing of GAR posts in New York State.

Click on the GAR Records Catalog.

From here you can download the pdf document (using the icon with the downward arrow).

Alternately, you can go Selecting the “Go Directly to the Catalog”. As of this blog post, the database was last updated in November 2015.

Select your state on the tab on the bottom opens a spreadsheet for the state.

Some of the records show that they have been digitized and are available at Ancestry.com.

But there is no record for the Gowanda Post #359.

I did copy all of the spreadsheet into an Excel document, but the cells had to be reformatted to see all the text. The spreadsheet is presented by a script, so there were some issues saving the page.

Give this website a try and let me know how you do!

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 3 – NY State Archives

This post is the third in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

The New York State Archives holds the organizational records of the GAR in New York State.

There are fourteen categories of records that a post might have, but the Archives are cautioned that all categories are rarely available for each chapter. We are also told that the focus of these records is the disbandment of posts from the 1920s to 1940s. Since there is no name index, you first have to find the chapter that to which your ancestor would have belonged.

You can use this list of GAR posts in New York State.

In Cattaraugus County, there was a Gowanda chapter.

Since Gowanda is in both Cattaraugus and Erie Counties, I checked the listings for Erie County, but found no other chapter.

So using the search at the NYSA.

 

I searched for: Gowanda and had 0 results.

Next I searched for the Chapter number, 359. I got 2 results, but was disappointed that items online was not one of them. There were 2 results, but it was disappointing that none was in items online.

 

 

Selecting Subseries 8

I saw that the Post Charter Application for Post 358 is held.

The next arrow took me to the next result in Subseries 9

I searched for Post 359, and they have it:

Since these are from 1922 – 1942, there are probably not of interest to me.

I did click on the Items Online to view what the NY State Archives had online about the GAR. There was one image, GAR photograph, William Murrell.

Look for your your state archives in this list from NARA, and check the archives for GAR information. Good luck with your searches!

Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) – 2 – The GAR Museum

This post is the second in a series of posts is about how to locate record the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). The first post contains information about the GAR.

The Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library is located in Philadelphia, PA, and has limited hours of operation.

 

There is a research and archives library available at the museum that advertises over 6,000 books, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers, and original source documents. You must make an appointment to view them.

There are Finding aids for the Library.

 

 

Click on the record set to get more information, or download the pdf for the information.

Pay attention to the Abstract, The Scope and Contents.

 

 

The Museum’s Archive Library holds several collections of Post materials, and not all of the posts are located in Pennsylvania.

Good luck in your searching!