To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the commencement of the war, Fold3 has made all of its War of 1812 records free to the public during the month of June. To be clear, the majority of these records are always free and the databases are incomplete.
According to Ancestry.com spokesperson, Matthew Deighton, “the collection consists of more than 400,000 images including 235,000 images from the War of 1812 Pension Files never before available online.”
The free databases are
War of 1812 Pension Files – 235,000 records is just 3% of the total, 7 million documents. This is an active digitization project.
War of 1812 Prize Cases, Southern District Court, NY – 12,000 records.
Letters Received by The Adjutant General, 1805-1821 – 132,000 records.
War of 1812 Service Records – 33,000 records. Covers Lake Erie and Mississippi.
The pension files database is always free because it is a joint project between Fold3 and the Federation of Genealogical Societies. FGS is soliciting contributions to digitize these records. More information can be found on these web pages:
Fold3: “War of 1812 Pension Application Files”
FGS: “Preserve the Pensions”
Ancestry Insider: “From NGS: Preserving the War of 1812 Pensions”
via The Ancestry Insider: War of 1812 Records Free During June.