The National Park Service (NPS) as a Genealogy Resource

The other day I was researching my 2nd cousin, 8x removed- Absolom Mendenhall (1780-1848). Absolom fought in the Civil War. I've come across Civil War records many times, but this one was quite different. Not only did the record give his regiment, it gave how many officers died, how many enlisted died and what battles were fought. Usually, I'd have to go outside of Ancestry.com to get more information on Civil War Regiments- especially when it comes to fatalities and battle information.

39th Infantry Regiment Illinois 

The National Park Service has a fantastic site if you're looking for information on a particular soldier. You can view the site by clicking here or you can jump to searching for a solider here. The search area is super easy to use. Just click on the link above and it'll take you right to the "Search For Soldiers" and you can just type in the name of the person you're looking for! 

Here's what it should look like: 

Here is the information they have on Absolom's regiment: 

100,000 Names

Good Morning Genealogy-enthusiasts!

I have to share some news. Yesterday, I reached 100,000 names in my Mendenhall family tree. What! That is a lot of names. I shared the news on my personal Facebook page, but accidentally stated "10,000"... It didn't even hit me until this morning when I read it again. Wait...I've got to have more than that, so I looked and, yep...I was wrong. It's 100, not 10.

So, I have been working on my genealogy since about 2003, 2004-ish, which is roughly 16 years. That's a long time. But, I've been working on expanding and adding sources and verifying sources for only the past 4 years.


This is my Mendenhall project- started Feb 2015

These are the four notebooks I've kept, my research logs. I'm currently half-way through the yellow one. In each one, I keep a record of the person I'm researching. I started with first names that were Unknown names and then went onto the alphabet- "A"s, "B"s, etc.

For example, when I type "Mendenhall" as a surname in my database, it comes up with everyone with that surname and their first names are in alphabetical order. The first one to come up is:

 A.M. Mendenhall (b.1832)
So, I try all my different sources- Mendenhall.org, Ancestry, etc. I researched this person (not much) and cited the sources and then moved on to the next person.

If I come upon someone who has children, it depends on if they are male or female what I do next. If the Mendenhall is a male, I research, site and move on to the next person because I will already eventually get to his children because they are Mendenhall's. If it is a female, I research her children and children's children- until I can't anymore. Sometime's one female Mendenhall can take me MONTHS to work on because of her descendants.

As of today, I just started the "Charles"...so I've dipped into the "C"s...and it's been 4 years. LOL This is definitely a long-term project!

This is how I've gotten up to 100,000 names- the constant work and how many people I've actually researched.