Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode: # 07        Original Publish Date:  April 8, 2007 The April 15 tax deadline is looming: did you know that The Civil War income tax was the first tax paid on individual incomes by residents of the United States? There is a fascinating article by Cynthia G. Fox on the subject called Income Tax Records of the Civil War Years.  It appears on the National Archives website and is excerpted from the Prologue Magazine Winter 1986 edition, Vol. 18, No. 4.  GEM #1:  Anna-Karin’s Genealogical Podcast http://annakarin.libsyn.com/ Anna-Karin Schander lives in Sweden and she publishing a podcast in English about Swedish-American genealogy. It will contain both information about Swedish genealogy and history and records and what happened to the Swedes who immigrated mainly to USA (but also to other countries) and the records they left.  She includes wonderful old traditional Swedish music as well.  GEM #2 – A website dedicated to the only war fought on American soil by Americans: The Civil War SONG:  Battle of Manassas Gov. Sam Houston-Texas: “Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.” The Civil War began at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina 146 years ago this week on April 12.  3 million fought - 600,000 died. Chances are someone in your family tree fought in the war. But one thing we know for sure, if you’ve traced any of your family lines back to the 1860s in the US, then you have folks in your tree who lived through and were deeply affected by the Civil War.  We’re going to want to learn more about their experience in order to understand their lives.  This will lead us to more genealogical leads. Read about the Civil War in the newspapers that your ancestors read. In addition to the newspapers available by paid subscription on Ancestry.com, there’s a terrific free resource! Go to http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/civil_war_us/index.html Click on The Civil War Years 1860-1866 Follow the links to topics of interest.  Locate ancestors who may have fought in the war. A terrific website is the Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System Website  Areas of the System: Soldiers  The CWSS includes 6.3 million soldier names from the National Archives, which were compiled by NPS'   in the CWSS project. As of February, 2000, volunteers in over 36 states had completed the data entry of all the 6.3 million soldier names from 44 states & territories. The two final editing processes for the records have recently been completed. Sailors  The NPS and its' CWSS partners are committed to eventually include the names of all Union and Confederate Naval personnel. Given that the records sources for the Navy are not as well organized as the Army records, nor are they micro-filmed, the target date for this is still to be determined. Regiments  The CWSS will include histories of over 4,000 Union and Confederate units (regiments), which will be linked to soldiers' names and battle histories. These will be completed this year as part of the CWSS site. The site currently includes regimental histories of units from 44 states and territories. Battles In the CWSS  The unit histories are linked to histories of the 364 most significant Civil War battles already on the Internet from the NPS' American Battlefield Protection Program. These battle histories were compiled as part of a report to Congress by the Civil War Sites Advisory Committee. Prisoners  The current version of the CWSS includes prisoner records of Union prisoners at Andersonville and Confederate prisoners at Fort McHenry. Cemeteries  The National Park Ser