James McDole: His Revealing Civil War Registration Record

 In 2011 Ancestry.com published additional Civil War records to its collection including “New York Town Clerks’ Registers of Men Who Servedin the Civil War”.

Some of the information gathered included: date of birth, place of birth, father’s name, mother’s MAIDEN NAME, marital status, previous occupation, bounty received, if any.  Interesting that the bounty amounts seemed to range from $50 to $900.

Not all town registrars were thorough, many were incomplete, some were rather illegible and some clerks could not spell ! (occupations:  laiborer, taylor, etc).  I have the CW pension file of one of my ancestors, so I know he enlisted in Ulster County, NY but he is not found in these registers.  However,  I really lucked out on my ancestor James McDole. 

James was listed as married, born 25 Dec 1831 in Londonderry, Ireland to father named James and mother Esther Dormick.  We'd had the month and year but not day of birth and no information on his mother. The register also listed previous occupation.  Records for James generally indicated that he was a farm laborer, but this was written in the register.

 

Any guesses? I welcome your interpretations. Not so important, and I really wanted confirmation that he was from Northern Ireland.

Given my luck with James, I thought perhaps I could unveil the mystery of Henry Ludington's two wives in neighboring Greene County, NY.  Henry had 3 sons who volunteered, two born to wife Nancy and one to wife Adeline. Fingers crossed ... but no luck. No parental information was recorded.

If you are researching NY Civil War volunteers, it is worth checking to see if you hit a clearly written, complete registration entry.