ResearchBuzz

The state of Illinois now has a Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls Database available at http://www.sos.state.il.us/departments/archives/datcivil.html . The direct link for searching the database is at http://www.ilsos.gov/genealogy/ .

You can search the database by the veteran’s name/partial name (you must enter at least two letters of the surname), company, unit, or place of residence. I did a search for smi . I got over 500 results (the maximum number of results you can get is 500) so I tried again, this time with owen . This time I got 284 results, covering both Owen and Owens.

Results are provided in a table showing name, rank, company, unit, and residence. (Be sure to check the ranks abbreviation list if you’re not clear on what a MUS or a UCOOK is.) Click on the name of the solider and you’ll get a page with additional personal information (eye and hair color, height, occupation, etc) as well as service information (muster in date, where they joined, when mustered out, etc.) There’s also a additional section which contains additional notes (I saw remuster dates, discharge for disability notes, death information, etc.)

The database was very quick to search but occasionally it seemed to hiccup in its searching, and I had to back all the way out to the top page and try again. This might have been just a Firefox issue.

The National Library of Scotland has launched an online collection of propaganda that was used during World War II. The collection is divided into “white propaganda” (they define as “mostly practical information intended for the Home Front”) and “black propaganda,” which targeted enemy morale.

From http://www.nls.uk/propaganda/index.html, you can read an overview of the collection and select white or black propaganda. Each link selected will give you a more general overview of the topic as well as a thumbnails to propaganda images — not posters, but rather booklets and postcards in the case of white propaganda and leaflets in the case of black propaganda. Clicking on the images brings larger images and detail pages about the item. The content of the item itself is not available online.

The collection is rather small but I found it interesting as most online collections of this type tend to focus on posters.