Finally, Word about the 'Preserve the Pensions' Digitization Project Status

Yesterday the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) on its website's blog FGS Voice published a post on the what has been happening (not happening) with the digitization of the War of 1812 pension files located at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

FGS acknowledges that genealogists have been frustrated by the lack of progress on this project despite the Preserve the Pensions fundraising initiative accomplishing its overall goal. No new War of 1812 pensions files have been added to the Fold3 website for about a year.

Now we finally know that the security issues at the St. Louis branch on another project (unrelated to the War of 1812 pensions) lead to an all-stop of all digitization projects. Unfortunately the negotiated next step, a test of the new procedures on M[oore] - Q pension files, will not be completed until third-quarter 2018. (It is planned to start this September.)

So it appears the last section, the R-Z pension files, will not be started until after that — a very long wait for those with end of the alphabet ancestors. That is assuming the test of new procedures/protocols goes well. Hopefully FGS will do better at keeping the genealogical community informed even if the whole story can not be shared.

Read the full FGS Voice post by clicking on the link above.

See you soon at Mt. Clemens Public Library!
LE