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Religious Archives Reveal the Lives of Two Sisters

Sister of St. Joseph of Buffalo, St. Mary's School for the Deaf, circa 1880.   March is Women's History Month! It's time for the spotlight to shine on the ladies in our family trees. I'll be writing all month on women I've researched. I encourage all family history lovers to take the month to seek out the stories of our foremothers! They are often under-documented, but they have a lot to teach us.   I've just finished reading Sunny Jane Morton's new book Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States. Catholic women religious are a frequently overlooked subject of genealogical research, for many reasons, including, as Morton states in her Introduction, "They were Catholics in a culture dominated by Protestants. They were women in a culture dominated by men...They were unmarried and not mothers in a culture that defined both as near-essential for women." These reasons are amplified in many cases by the women'...
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GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021 - Military Record

GENEALOGY CHALLENGE

Military Record - January 6th entry of a 31-day challenge to post a document, photo or artifact on social media every day in January.

by Nancy Gilbride Casey

 

Top section of Collostin J. Davis' Declaration for Invalid Pension (remainder of document below).

While not strictly a military service record, this Declaration for Invalid Pension is part of the Civil War Pension file for Collostin James Davis, one of my husband's 3x great grandfathers.1

C. J. Davis served in the 12th Maine Infantry, Company B, enlisting in 1 November 1861 in Pittsfield, Somerset, Maine. He served the entire Civil War, being honorably discharged at Hart's Island, New York in May 1866. He paid a dear price for that service.

Collostin sought a pension in 1891 from the U.S. government, claiming that due to his injuries, he could not completely support himself. He declared he had suffered, "...gunshot wounds of the right arm, adhesion of the plura on the right side from taking cold from measles whilst in the army." He swore out his declaration in the presence of a notary public in Reno County, Kansas, where he was living on 25 April 1891. 

His declaration was only the beginning of the invalid pension process. Collostin had to be physically examined by doctors who would confirm his injuries and diseases. He needed to obtain proof that he was honorably discharged. He needed affidavits from neighbors and associates swearing that he did indeed have the disabilities he claimed to have, which as his life progressed included a terrible, wracking cough, and an inability to completely use his right arm. All of these steps took time, as the forms wound their way back and forth between Kansas and Washington, and elsewhere, in the late 1890s and early 1900s. (A similar process awaiting his widow, Ellen Maria Martin Davis, after Collostin's death in 1911, in order to collect her widow's pension.)

In all, Collostin's entire Civil War pension file totals 106 pages of fascinating reading.

 


 


NEXT UP -Burial or cemetery record

To read more about Collostin J. Davis' Civil War service, read my blog post, "The Bad Luck of Collostin J. Davis, Cpl., 12th Maine Volunteer Infantry."

 

1 Collastin J. Davis (Cpl., Cos. B & H, 12th Me Inf., Civil War), pension no. Inv. Claim 308,563, Case Files of Approved Pension Applications, 1861-1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; "Declaration for Original Invalid Pension," 22 Sept. 1883; citing Record Group 15:  Records of the Department of Veterans Administration; National Archives, Washington, D.C.



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