Like so many days surfing the web, you end up in a place that you never intend to without the first clue how you got there. I stumbled across footnote.com just that way. The site has a large image collection of all types of documents from the Revolutionary War, through the Civil War and on to FBI files.
I started typing in different surnames from the family, getting hit after hit of various documents. I typed in Zuver and had over 4,000 records to review, so I limited the search by adding Pennsylvania to the search. I then reduced the number by selecting the Civil War pension files.
Much to my surprise up popped the record for James W Zuver. For some reason this image is not included with the images available on ancestry.com. James was the son of George Zuver. George was the father that had requested James’ pension transferred from his deceased wife to himself. I have written about him previously.
I paid for a month’s subscription so that I could closely view and download images for my files. I will watch the resource and see what new images they load and determine if a year’s subscription would be valuable to me.
The record showed very clearly that James pension was first recorded for his mother, October 11, 1890. “The section “Minor” was scratched out and was replaced with “Mother.” Below the data for the mother’s pension was the handwritten note “Father” with the appropriate application and certificate numbers. The paperwork that I had received from the National Archive that showed George requested the pension was from Mar 30, 1901, never specified if the application for a Father’s pension benefit was approved.
Note: Since posting this blog entry I have found several other relative’s information that are not available on ancestry.com’s site.