If you have been searching for documentation for veterans in your family, we understand your frustration. You may have already checked online by visiting Ancestry, American Ancestors, and Fold3, which are subscription sites. The National Archives, Family Search, NYS Military Museum, NYS Archives, and Fulton History are some free sites you may have already visited. There are others that are specific to the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, World War I. A Google search can usually turn them up quickly.
My favorite sites are quite often found within the walls of the Fenton Research Center if the veteran was a Chautauqua County resident. Depending on the war in question, it can be as easy as checking the family file under the surname of the soldier in question, but if that doesn’t work, we have other pockets of wonderful resources. But always remember that our research library stacks contain many books pertaining to the main migration route, from the New England States, including Pennsylvania and over as far as Michigan. So, your family veterans don’t need to have lived locally for you to find them locally.
Although there weren’t any Revolutionary War soldiers living in Chautauqua County at the time of their service, there certainly were Revolutionary War veterans living here later, and many of their sons were the War of 1812 soldiers. Sadly, the graves of many War of 1812 Veterans are not flagged. We discovered there were far more 1812 veterans than we thought in 2012 when we began documenting them during the 200th anniversary. Ten or twelve known 1812 veterans grew to three large notebooks and is an ongoing project! Patriot Soldiers of 1775-1783 includes not only the Patriot himself but documents names of their sons who were War of 1812 veterans. The Foote Papers, among other treasures, gives great info since Elial Foote personally knew these veterans.
Many people are surprised when they discover that the Civil War had a huge impact on Chautauqua County. The numbers for that time period may be very close to the local ratio during World War II, and not surprisingly, the Research Center has an abundance of unique resources for each of these wars. There are photos, scrapbooks, diaries, letters and books that are favorite resources for both. As a great backup, both the Civil War and World War II were heavily reported in local newspapers, which can be found on the Fulton History site.
The Fenton Guards, also known as the 13th Separate Company (Jamestown National Guard) left Jamestown in March 1898. The Samuel M. Porter United Spanish War Veterans met at the Fenton Mansion in the room once used by the Fentons as their family parlor. We have news articles, photos, and a history of the Fenton Guards which include rosters and information.
The Jamestown Armory was the major source of info for the Mexican Border War. There is a database of National Guard enlistments covering Fenton Guards through our Korea enlistments at the Research Center. They were documented with permission at the Armory for increased accessibility.
The information on Korea and Vietnam veterans are not as richly abundant, but are available and accessible through the Veteran Listing Project cards and database, both found at the Fenton Research Center.
