Looking for Locations? Check Pension files.

I really enjoy pension research. It's great for finding out where our ancestors and their families were living. Knowing that information can help us find even more documents and clues in areas in which we might not otherwise have known to look. One of my autosomal DNA matches has a William Eakin who is living in the same county where my paternal lines lived. This may or may not be the connection to my own family. I read thru the application (and later the transcription which I found within a Family Tree file at Ancestry) because I wanted to know where this family had been before coming to Tennessee.

Bedford Co TN ---7th May 1833 William Eakin states under oath that he was born 8th Oct 1765 in York District South Carolina and that he was a citizen and resident in that same district and state when he entered the Service(from earlier testimony--16 November 1780) and continued to be a Citizen of said District until the year 1810 when he removed to the State of Illinois and in 1812 he removed to Bedford County Tennessee where he has lived ever since. His widow filed for a pension in TX where they moved before his death. Her pension application includes additional dates and persons who knew them. (info from transcription at http://revwarapps.org/w3530.pdf )

"United States Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Applications, 1800-1900," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N9N5-857 : 9 March 2018), William Eakin, pension number W. 3530, service S.C.; from "Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files," database and images, Fold3.com (http://www.fold3.com : n.d); citing NARA microfilm publication M804 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1974); FHL microfilm 970,883.

Images at Ancestry: https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1995  

Search on William Eakin pension date 1833  Elizabeth(wife)

This William Eakin and/or his family was in

• York District, South Carolina
• Illinois
• Bedford County, Tennessee, USA
• Shelby County, Texas, USA
• Any number of places between these locations may contain a paper trail link

This is just a small portion of the information included in this pension file. Who knows what is waiting to be found for your families. Sometimes, we tend to think that just because our ancestors didn't have the transportation modes we have today, they just didn't travel that much. Read through a few Pension application files.  I assure you, that is NOT the case. Many of my Tennessee lines(some direct and others cousin lines) went to Texas from Tennessee. Some returned to Tennessee while others stayed in Texas or moved on to California. This was all before the automobile was on the scene.  

Check the FamilySearch's Wiki page for more information about Pensions.