Peoria County War 1812 Soldiers - Bounty Land Grants

The War of 1812 Project started in 2011 and is a statewide project led by the Illinois War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission (Illinois War of 1812 Society).  The Peoria County Genealogical Society agreed to partner with the Commission to research Peoria County. The purpose of the project is to identify all veterans and the grave sites of the War of 1812 in each county of Illinois.

As Lori Ingersoll, PCGS (Past) Project Coordinator reported, the Illinois War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission gave each county a list of names, but volunteers quickly found that the list was not comprehensive.  This project was going to require more volunteers, more research, and more time!

Thanks to the following Peoria County volunteers for the work they have done SO FAR!:  Sue Swanson, Laraine Wessels, Fred Katko, Donna Hartwig, Rita Marsh, Rose Bantz, Pat Mitchell, Nancy Blackwell, Becki Leucht, Karen Seeman, and Lori Ingersoll.

Despite all the leg work, cemetery visits and research -- more research work is needed to complete the project. Contact PCGSProject@gmail.com if you are interested and check out the Illinois War of 1812 Bicentennial Commission on the web.

As the project nears completion, PCGS hopes to post an index of the Peoria War of 1812 Veterans on this page.

FREE War of 1812 PENSION FILES:
You can access free War of 1812 pension files on Fold 3.  The War of 1812 pension files include application files which may include a great deal of family information and stories because the burden of proof was on the applicant.  These files are made possible through a different project, but an important one. The Federation of Genealogical Societies has spearheaded a funding campaign to get all the pension files digitized and made available to the public FREE due to their fragile original state.   As these files get digitized, they are made available at the Fold 3 website. The files are 62% digitized and over 1,798,282 records are available so far.

PCGS has made a donation to Preserve the Records and President Hartwig was able to get ancestry.com to match our donation! The Illinois State Genealogical Society donated a matching amount up to $12,000 to help with this effort.

Check out this blog at the National Genealogical Society to find out more about women in the War of 1812: National Genealogical Society - Preserve the Pensions