How To Find Your Rebel Kin, Part Two

Sylvia Hathaway to me, con't

Aug 28 (7 days ago) 

MoSGA Spring 1997: 14 Sep 1895, p1: Peggy Pegs.

  James Snider, brother to Henderson Snider, died last Saturday.  See note. MoSGA editor's warning that articles received late appeared in the following week's paper.

Note from George Windes:   I know that Sally (Sarah) Ann loved her dad (James Snider). We also have a tale that James and Sally's father-in-law, John Chatman Windes (24 Oct 1827 St Genevieve Mo- 24 Nov 1883 Carter County MO), didn't like each other. They had fought on different sides of the Civil War. The Union man got a pension (in his old age), but the Confederate didn't. They got into a fight over it one day at the post office when a check came through.

Children of JAMES SNIDER and REBEKAH SMITH Montgomery are:

i.                     RODA J SNIDER, b. 01 Dec 1856, Low, Shannon, Missouri, USA; d. 13

            Dec 1868, Low, Shannon, Missouri, USA.

ii.                   SARAH ANN SNIDER,  b. 21 Jun 1857, Carter County, Missouri; d. 16 Dec 1917. Married George Irvin Windes.

     iii.        MARGARET J. SNIDER b. 1859, Pike Creek, Carter, MO

Children of JAMES SNIDER and TERRESSA NEAL are:

   RODA E. SNIDER b. 01 Dec 1865, Missouri; d. 13 Dec 1868 (see above for alternate dates)

  

  CHARLES WESLEY SNIDER, b. 08 Sep 1867, Low Wassie, Missouri; d. 26 Aug 1909, Ordway, Otero, Colorado. Married Viola Belle Nichols.

   EMILY SNIDER, b. 03 Oct 1868, Missouri; d. 13 Sep 1869, Missouri.

   SILAS NELSON SNIDER, b. 23 Sep 1870, Missouri; d. 20 Nov 1921, Missouri. (m Martha E. Holland and 2nd Gracie M. Dace) buried Rumberg Cemetery.

   MARY ELLEN SNIDER, b. 03 Jul 1872, Missouri; d. 06 Mar 1933, Pocahontas, Randolph, AR. Married William M. Mitchell.

   MALLISSA A. SNIDER, b. 16 May 1872, Missouri; d. 09 Aug 1874, Missouri,

   ROBERT L. SNIDER b. 09 Jan 1876, Missouri; d. 16 Aug 1881, Missouri.

  JAMES ALLEN SNIDER  b. 07 Jul 1877, Missouri d. 21 Jan 1901

 JOHN WALKER SNIDER, b. 08 Sep 1879, Missouri; d. 12 Feb 1940, Poplar Bluff, Butler, MO. Married Louise F. Long.

 NANCY VIOLA SNIDER b. 02 Apr 1881, Missouri, USA d. Abt. 1900; m. JNO T. D. DURGAN, 30 Jan 1900

  ELI FRANK SNIDER, b. 22 Nov 1884, Shannon, Missouri, USA; d. 21 Jul 1970, Poplar Bluff, Butler, Missouri, Married Dora V. Smith.

  GEORGE NELSON SNIDER, b. 06 Jul 1887, Low Wassie, Shannon, Missouri; d. 17 Nov 1935, Riverside, California. Married Bertha E Ferrell.

 THANKS AGAIN!

I am not used to getting so much detail when I get a request for help. James Snider was already in my research tree, Alex Chilton to Ben Talbot, ancestry.com., and some of this information was already recorded there. However, it is always good to find that someone else has come to the same conclusions that you have.

Typically ancestry.com is the first place I go when I start the research project. I like to find the subject on the 1850 and 1860 census first. It is very important to check the ages of any children. Many father and son fought together and some fought each other. I try to track any siblings and their subsequent marriages. Brother-in-laws are very important. I always want to know the subject’s brothers and their wives. The wife’s brother is very important. Equally important are sister’s husbands and their brothers. Somewhere in this process I start looking at both maternal and paternal aunts and uncles and their children. Some cousins were as close as siblings. In our region many, many double cousins are found.  I’m looking for as many different surnames as possible. I want to know where each individual lived. Census records give us State, County and township. Always look at close neighbors on the census records. Land patent records can be very informative however, many land transactions were for profit and the purchaser never lived on the ground they purchased from the government.

By the time I have looked at his kin and his close neighbors I usually have a very good idea as to which side the subject supported. And, in some instances can make an educated guess as to what regiment he belonged. In this instance Ms. Hathaway has provided us with the name of a brother-in-law with known records of service. Freeman’s Regiment was very active in the western counties of our area during a large portion of the war. Some of Freeman’s descendants’ still reside in the Reynolds-Carter-Shannon County area.

I would now start my search of military records by going to my files. Early in my pursuit of this subject I copied many of the area regiments to an Excel* spreadsheet file. All of the rosters are in one workbook with each having their own sheet within the workbook. It is fully searchable and allows me to make notation within individual’s files and I typically include a link to the individual within my ancestry file.com file.Knowing that a brother-in-law served with Freeman, that roster is the first I would search.

I found Simeon Smith:

	Roan R.J. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Sappington Benoni R. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Sexton J.E. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E Capt.
	Sipes E. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Smith Joseph MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Smith James MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Smith Simeon MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Tate William MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Tate K.K. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Taylor H. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Thompson W.I. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E
	Thompson T. MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E Sgt.
	Vickroy John MO Cav. Freeman's Regt. Co.E

I did not find our subject, James Snider(Snyder). The fact that James Snider is NOT on this roster does NOT mean that he didn’t at one time belong to this regiment. It only means that his name wasn’t recorded as James Snider at the time of surrender or on any of the surviving regimental records.

The next tool in our tool box is one of my favorites. Footnote.com (now known as Fold 3.com. This is the largest repository of digital military records available online. Like ancestry.com it a premium site and you must join and pay a fee to use their service. In fact Fold 3 is a part of the ancestry.com family of research sites.

*Confederate Service Records

Military Service Records of Confederate Solders who Served During the Civil War

Confederate service records are typically less complete than those relating to Union soldiers since many Confederate records did not survive the war.

When the Confederate government evacuated Richmond, many Confederate records were sent away, destroyed, or left behind. Some of the records found their way into the hands of the Union Army and were forwarded to the War Department. In July 1865, the Adjutant General established a bureau for the “collection, safekeeping, and publication of Rebel Archives.”  In 1903 the Secretary of War persuaded the Governors of most Southern States to lend Confederate military personnel records to the War Department for copying.

These captured and copied Confederate records, as well as Union prison and parole records, were abstracted by the War Department between 1903 and 1927 to compile military service records of Confederate officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted men.

The Compiled service records consist of a card or cards containing information abstracted from such original records as muster rolls, regimental returns, and medical and prison registers. The records may list his age, place of enlistment, birthplace, residence and occupation as well as a physical description. However, you tend to find more information of this kind with early enlistments. These records are valuable for proving military service, but keep in mind that a compiled military service record is only as complete as the records of an individual soldier or his unit.

NOTE: When checking the indexes, be sure to consider alternative spellings. Names were frequently misspelled for a variety of reasons. Even more frustrating, many records list initials rather than full names. Note in the record below, one record used initials, but the other record used first name and middle initial.

http://www.civilwarsoldiersearch.com/confederate-service-records.html

The initial search (James Snider) in the civil war collection revealed 808 hits. We will narrow this down by focusing our search.

A small sampling of our choices:

Showing 22 available results:

Census - US Federal 1860 (165)

Confederate Citizens File (126)

Civil War Soldiers - Confederate - MO (106)

Civil War Soldiers - Confederate - VA (75)

Civil War "Widows' Pensions" (48)

Civil War Soldiers - Union - KY (45)

Civil War and Later Veterans Pension Index (40)

Civil War Soldiers-Confederate-MO narrows the results down to 106. 

Showing 3 available results

Snider's Battalion, Cavalry (101)

Twelfth Infantry, Pr-Z (3)

State Guard, Sn-Th (2)

  I am fairly certain, because of experience in researching men from our geographical area, that I will NOT find James Snider in Snider’s Battalion, Cavalry.

            I’ll try the Twelfth Infantry first. It indicates that there are three (3) documents.

#1 is the cover folder containing two records for a James M. Snider who served in the 12^th Infantry. The Twelfth was raised in our region so this is a possibility. At the start of a search I do not pay much attention to middle initials. Often they are recorded incorrectly. 

The information contained in these cards tells us that James M. Snider enlisted for 3 years on the 5^th of October 1862 at Pocahontas Arkansas, in White’s Regiment and was assigned to Company B as a Private.  White’s Regiment later became the 12^th Infantry. It also indicates that James M. Snider deserted his regiment on Dec. 10, 1862. Don’t jump to rash conclusions over information that he deserted. This just means that the company clerk didn’t know where he was on the day of the muster. We would need to have more information in order to conclude Desertion in the context modern people think of it meaning. 

Next we will look at the two (2) records of the James Snider who was in the Missouri State Guard.

Unfortunately, I can rule out this record as applying to our subject due to the Residence being listed as Scott County, Missouri.

I continued my search in the military records by trying as many different spelling variations of the first and last names as I could think of including all of the different combinations of the same. When I tried Jas Snyder I hit pay dirt. And, only the second card of this set of records was labeled Jas Snyder.  

This record indicates essentially the same information we found on the Missouri Secretary State site. I do believe we have the right man. In the next segment we will try to located further information about James Snider and his time spent in the Military Service.