Military Monday- Digitizing of the Pension Records of 1812? What???

Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society has decided to participate in

            "Preserve the Pensions-  War of 1812" Project.

The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) is spearheading this project.   There is a $3.7 million nationwide fundraising initiative going on to digitize the long-neglected War of 1812 pension records.

These orginal documents are extremely fragile and they need to be digitized quickly to preserve the best possible image of each page. This is the first time in history that the entire genealogical community is coming together to see a project of this magnitude to completion... from the National Archives to fold3 to individual states and local genealogical societies (Root Cellar SGS).

This IS where Root Cellar SGS fits in............ We are going to have our own "money raiser" in support of this project.  Root Cellar SGS will match donations up to $300. We will be collecting from now through the June Meeting. So in the end we hope to be donating $600 (your money plus RC matched funds) to the project. In June our donation of $600 will be sent to FGS.

But wait it gets so much better....... FGS reports the donation to Ancestry.com and Ancestry.com will match our donation.  So now we have acutally donated $1200. Isn't that amazing.

If you would like to help and donate any amount please send your checks to:

Root Cellar SGS
P O Box 265
Citrus Heights, CA 95611

(make checks payable to Root Cellar & indicate on the check it is for War of 1812)

......we will also be collecting at each general meeting through the June Meeting.

Thank you so much for your support .......  we will keep you informed.

Interesting Facts: (taken from FGS flyer and website)
* Ancestry.com has generously stepped up and agreed to cover costs to digitize HALF of the War of 1812 pension records. So every dollar donated will actually go twice as far.
  example: at a cost of $.45 per digitized page, your tax-deductible gift of $45 would normally digitize 100 pages. But with the help of Ancestry.com it will digitize 200 pages.

* All of the War of 1812 Pension Records digitized with your donation will be made available to the public on  fold3

* The Federation of Genealogical Societies is pleased to partner with Ancestry.com, fold3, and FamilySearch, as well as numerous individual state and local genealogical societies (that's us -Root Cellar SGS) and leaders in the genealogical community.

* There are 180,000 pension records from the War of 1812 housed at the National Archives, a total of 7,200,000 pages.  From 2012-2015 we commomorate the 200th anniversaries of the War of 1812 battles - batttle of a war some hail as our second Revolutionary War.

posted with excitment and anticipation by Sandra Gardner Benward