I had the pleasure of meeting Brian before he became my Brian. let me explain because I don’t know whether or not he has a partner. For some reason ordering Civil War pensions from the National Archives is a very Personal experience for me. and this task has been handled for over a decade by Jonathan Webb Diess, a genealogy Quick Start special guest alumni.
The day that I met Jonathan I was at my wits end and on the verge of tears. I had just spent five or more hours photocopying pension records for Civil War soldiers buried in Lawnside New Jersey. Now staring me in the face was the fattest pension packet that I had ever seen. it was a contested Widow pension meaning multiple women said that this Soldier was their husband. Jonathan happened to be at the desk that day and offered to scan that monster reality show of a pension packet.
From that day 4th Jonathan became my pension guy. I shared him far and wide with anyone who would listen. If you need a pension, contact my friend Jonathan. Then recently I contacted Jonathan because I needed the pension packets of two soldiers from the same town with the same name. UGH! This is when he broke the bad news to me. He was phasing out that service. This is when he introduced me to Brian Rhinehart. But wait a minute do I already know Brian I thought.
It didn’t take long for me to remember that Brian was a student at GRIP, the Genealogical Research Institute In Pennsylvania. the one thing that I remember specifically about Brian during that class is he had a great National Archives background. Then just recently I had the opportunity to table across the aisle from Brian during the Ohio Genealogical Society conference.
We are looking forward to having him on the show on September 19th at 8:00 p.m. ET. Check out his website CivilWarRecords.com, Where he provides record retrieval from the National Archives. He says “We go to DC so you don’t have to! You can even do a free lookup on the site to see what’s available for your ancestor.
Watch the New Quick Start
YouTube or Facebook Live at 8:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 19th on YouTube and Facebook. The recording will be available after the episode.
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