Susannah Ural March 2, 2015

If you would like to help us record the history of the Beauvoir veteran’s home, please read and follow the instructions below. Due to the large number of men and women who lived and worked at Beauvoir, we welcome the participation of anyone who would like to assist us in research and data entry. Thank you for your interest and help!

  1. Download the “Beauvoir Veteran Project – Database Template“ — This is the Excel database template that every researcher uses to enter and save the Federal census data on the veteran, wife, or widow they are researching. After entering the information for each decade (which you’ll see are separate “tabs” at the bottom of the spread sheet — 1850, 1860, 1870, etc.) the researcher will save the file as “Beauvoir Veteran Project – Last name, First name Middle initial/name (if available)” for each veteran/wife/widow they research. See the example file “Beauvoir Veteran Project – Anderson, Volney H.xlsx” as an example of how researchers should save EACH person’s data. Again, remember that each veteran, wife, or widow’s data is saved as a separate file. NOTE: Don’t worry if you can’t find data for 1890; the census records for that year were almost all destroyed in a fire.
  2. Download the “Beauvoir Veteran Home – Female Residents” and “Beauvoir Veteran Home – Male Residents” — This is the list of all residents. You can see here how we have skipped to the third male and female name at the start of each list, and then highlighted every 10th name, creating a data sample of about 10 percent of the veterans who lived at Beauvoir. In all, there were 694 women and 1155 men, totaling 1849 residents between 1903 and 1957. We’re sampling about 185 people.
  3. Download the “Blank Census Forms 1850-1940” — These are helpful in case students/volunteer researchers want to hand enter their veterans’, wives’, widows’ data and then type it into the Excel template.
  4. Gathering data — Please save (digitally) EVERY card in the veteran’s military/compiled service record that you find in Fold 3. We also need you to save the summary page from Ancestry where you find the veteran/wife/widow in the census records. You can create links to these in your data entry sheet if you like — see “Anderson Volney H Census Data.pdf” for an example of how to do this.
  5. If your veteran or resident was a slaveholder, record a summary of their 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedule — We would like you to look for each veteran, wife, or widow in the 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedules as well. Simply note if you can find them, and how many slaves they or their family owned. This will help us evaluate their wealth from the antebellum to postwar years. Save the summary pages, just as described above, and save it in a word file labeled with their first and last name (ie “SmithJamesSlaveSchedule.docx”).
  6. Save images of their Compiled Service Records — These are the military service records of a veteran. Since admittance to the Beauvoir veteran home required veteran status, we know there is a very likely chance of finding their service record. Some are lost, some misfiled, but the majority of veterans should have service records. Again, as noted above, save and upload EVERY service card for the veteran under study. For some, this could be as many as 100 cards. For many, though, it’s anywhere from 2 to 18 cards. Please save these in a folder labeled with their last name (ie “SmithJamesServiceRecords).
  7. Send these forms to beauvoirveteranproject@gmail.com
    1. Please save all of the data you find in a single folder with a title featuring the veteran/wife/widow’s name. In the case of Volney Anderson, I’d title the folder “Volney Anderson.”
    2. In that folder, save an image of EACH card in the veterans’ compiled service record (CSR), either screen shots or actual images of the each census record you find, digital copies of his or her pension application, and anything else you find on this individual.
    3. It would also be helpful to create subfolders to contain all of this – a subfolder titled “Census,” another titled “CSR,” another titled “Newspapers” if you find anything in online newspapers, another titled “Pension Application,” etc.
    4. When you have saved all of your findings into one large folder, please send it to us at beauvoirveteranproject@gmail.com .

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