Tracing Your Civil War Ancestors

It is tantalizing to speculate about the role your ancestors may have played in the great national drama of the Civil War. But family records are often inaccurate, or provide precious few leads on where to begin the search.

Now, experienced historian Bertram Hawthorne Groene shows you how easy it is to trace your forbearers' role in the war, where and how long they fought, whether they were Union or Rebel, soldier or sailor -- even with a minimum of information.

Tracing Your Civil War Ancestor provides you with:

-- The names and addresses of all state archives.

-- The names and addresses of institutions that hold microfilmed service records from the national archives.

-- Names and publishers of useful regional Civil War reference books.

-- Names and publishers of sourcebooks for identifying Civil War weapons and accoutrements.

-- And much more.

Historians, genealogists, antique dealers, and collectors of Civil War artifacts will find this concise guidebook of great value. But most of all it is of inestimable practical value to family historians, North and South, who are discovering the pleasure and satisfaction of compiling an accurate family history.

My mother occasionally buys one of Ballantine's books without realizing it, only to later give me her unsolicited, but very welcome, opinion. When she told me she had bought this book, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why, since as far as I knew all my ancestors came over after the civil war, and those who came before had settled in the Dakota Territories. Turns out I had a three great, great, great uncles who all died in the same battle, and my mother, a rampant geneologist, bought the book to help her find out which battle and where they are buried.
A. Scheibe, editorial