Adding One to the Blogroll - The McGinty Chronicles

A few weeks ago I received a nice comment on one of my older posts - "Ambulance Chasing - Civil War Style":

"In researching the validity of a post-Civil War pension table, I came across your blog and found it most helpful, thank you. I will be posting my document on Monday, March 2, 2009, and thought you might find it interesting. My project, McGinty Chronicles, is the research of my family's history in America from the early 1800's and I present it from the viewpoint of my Great-grandfather, John L. Sigley who, among other occupations was a correspondent for several publications."

Interesting, indeed! The comment was from Brian Sigley, webmaster of the Chronicles. After receiving the comment, I spent a few minutes browsing the site...and the minutes turned to hours!

Brian started the blog just a few months ago (October 2008) so it's still easy to start at the beginning and look through the first posts, all told through the voice of "McGinty" - the pen name of Brian's ancestor, John L. Sigley. After going through the 2008 posts, visit the 2009 section.

Visitors to the site are treated to an amazing array of primary source documents (scanned and easily viewed), including many from the Civil War, associated with "McGinty" father - Thomas Wyatt Sigley, with Company H, 3rd Illinois Cavalry - and uncle - John Sigley, 13th New Jersey Infantry. They include the pension documents that Brian referred to in his comment above, as well as:

• Thomas and John Sigley's Civil War muster rolls, enlistment documents, and discharge papers
• Handwritten wartime diary pages
• Photographs of artifacts such as GAR uniform buttons
• Wartime tax assessments
• much more to come!

It turns out that Thomas Sigley employed the services of a pension attorney - John W. Morris - that was featured in a period newspaper advertisement I had on my blog, and thus the nice comment from Brian.

I encourage you to visit his site, keep up with the interesting family story, and drop him a line!