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Thursday, May 2, 2013

Service Records of Volunteers, 1784-1811


I am finding the Service Records of Volunteers, 1784-1811 to be a very useful group of records. They are available on the Internet at both Fold3 and Ancestry.com . This group of records is especially useful for the Southern States where skirmishes with the Indians were common during this time period. The Chickamauga Wars were a series of skirmishes that took place between 1776 and 1794 in and around Tennessee.
The records in this record group are mainly Militia Rolls. Since all able bodied men were required to serve in the Militia it's a good census substitute for the Southern male population. The south lost many of it's early census records, especially Tennessee so any list of residents is helpful. I found Amsy Browning in these records. Apparently the only place Amsy can be found in any records anywhere is in these Militia records. We would never know Amsy existed or lived in the Sullivan County, Tennessee area if not for these records. These records have also added to our knowledge of the life of Hugh Forgey. We now know he served in the Militia under his brother-in-law Captain John Beaird in Knox County, Tennessee. I've also notice a William Forgy was killed at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania. I don't know the circumstances of his death, but the date of his death may not be known to his descendants and they might find this bit of information helpful.
If you browse these records at Fold3 (you'll find them under Revolutionary War??) and you drill down to the unit name you will notice a record group called introduction. Often it doesn't give any additional information other than pay roll numbers (participating in the Militia did provide a pay check at least). Sometimes a little additional information is given regarding the unit. It's sometimes interesting to see the reason why the Militia was called up at a particular time. According to one of Captain Looney's  reports his unit was mustered because of an Indian Invasion. So we know that Andrew Forgey Jr. was called up to help repel this invasion in October of 1793.
I've found these records very interesting and I've learned more about the Militia units, and the Indian Wars in Tennessee.


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