INFORMATION SOUGHT FOR CIVIL WAR INDEX

Many readers have heard or read about the Civil War Soldiers System, a joint project of the National Park Service, the Civil War Trust, the Genealogical Society of Utah, the National Archives, and the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The system will include a computerized database containing basic facts about soldiers who served on both sides during the Civil War. It is certain to be a well-used tool for park visitors and family history researchers. Initially the Civil War Soldiers System will contain 5.5 million names of soldiers who fought in the Civil War, along with such information as whether the soldier was Confederate or Union, and the soldiers regiment and rank. Over time, the system will be expanded to provide additional information about individual soldiers, regimental histories, descriptions of battles and skirmishes, burial locations and prisoner-of-war records.

The Names Index is the first and current phase of the project. In this phase, volunteers are entering soldier information to a database using software developed by the Genealogical Society of Utah and basic soldier information taken from copies of the 5.5 million General Index cards from the National Archives.

Volunteers are being recruited in each state to assist with the data entry. St. Louis Genealogical Society is acting as the coordinating unit for Missouri, and Pamela K. Porter is serving as the Missouri Regional Coordinator.

The success of the Names Index project will depend, in large part, on how many interested persons volunteer to sit at computer keyboards using software provided free of charge by the project management. Any interested person who has ever typed or used a keyboard can be shown, in a few minutes, how to do what is needed. Each volunteer will decide how much time he or she wants to contribute to the project.

Citizens interested in participating should contact Pamela K. Porter, c/o Memory Lane, 12545 Olive Blvd., Suite 147, St. Louis, Mo. 63141-6378, phone (314) 579-9556. If your organization is willing to act as a local coordinating unit for the Civil War Soldiers System project in your area, please call Pamela Porter for an informational packet.