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Footnote.com: Primary Source Historical Documents Footnote combines the best original source content from the world’s archives and users’ shoeboxes to create the leading online repository of historical source documents and photos. Through their partnership with The National Archives they have digitized, indexed, and placed on Footnote.com tens of millions of pages military records, naturalization records, and other important historical source material.
Footnote adds millions of new pages to the site each month.
Key collections include Revolutionary War Pension applications, Civil War Pension Index, Southern Claims Commission, and millions of pages of naturalization records. In addition to finding, downloading, and printing historical source documents, on Footnote users can also annotate, connect, and comment on the images on the site and see what others have discovered and said.
New: Visit our new page Lowcountry Africana at Footnote.com, where we feature documents on Footnote concerning Lowcountry African Americans!
Featured Collection: Southern Claims Commission
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 Key Collections at Footnote.com
This publication contains index cards for pension applications of veterans who served in the U.S. Army between 1861 and 1917, including wars other than the Civil War. Records are sorted by units within regiments from each state in the Union. Find a soldier by searching on his name or browse by regiment. Learn about his term of service, and use the information to request his pension record. Unique to this series of records are death dates and locations for many of veterans who died after the war.
The records in this collection include entire pension files for soldiers and sailors who served in the Revolutionary War. Unlike selected service records, which were typically chosen subjectively for genealogical content, these records reveal more details about each veteran's history and service, as well as more information about his family, state of health, and life after the war.
In 1871, the US government established the Southern Claims Commission to address southerners' petitions for compensation of supplies, livestock, and other items taken by the Union troops during the Civil War. More than 20,000 claims were filed. These testimonial files include first-person accounts of how civilians survived the war, detailed circumstances regarding loss of property, and accounts of each family's history and loyalty to the Union cause.
Free Collections at Footnote.com
These records contain correspondence and court documents of the Supreme Court case related to the Amistad. Claims of salvage of the ship, cargo, and slaves on board were decided by the Supreme Court in 1841. There were treaties involved, and the case was a flash point for the abolitionist movement of the time. Handwritten records of this landmark case illuminate the conflict over slavery at that time, and are good examples of the operation of the US judicial system.
The American Colonization Society was formed in Washington, DC, in 1817 to establish a colony in Africa for free people of color residing in the US. Most of the documents found here are letters between Liberia and representatives of the Society. Many cover fundraising issues relating to support and education in the newly-formed country. You will also find account books, annual reports, news clippings, and related manuscripts. The Society's most active period was prior to, and just after, the Civil War.
If you're interested in Pennsylvania history and want information relating to historical events, facts about ancestors, or original documents to support a research paper, the Pennsylvania Archives is an important publication to explore. This series contains essential records relating to one of America's earliest colonies, from 1664 to 1780, including military, tax, marriage, and land records, as well as documents from American history covering the Revolutionary War and the Whiskey Rebellion.
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