- The Illinois State Genealogical Society has raised more than $40,000 during its War of 1812 Pension Match Challenge. ISGS announced its $10,000 War of 1812 Pension Match Challenge on June 18, the 200th anniversary of the declaration of the War of 1812, and committed to matching any contribution up to the first $10,000 made to the project. Ancestry.com announced that it would also match all monies donated during the campaign, resulting in contributions being quadrupled.
The money will be donated to the Preserve the Pensions effort, resulting in 88,888 additional pages of the War of 1812 Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files being digitized over the next few months. The campaign, sponsored by the Federation of Genealogical Societies, Ancestry.com, Fold3 and the National Archives, hopes to raise more than $3.7 million to digitize all of the pension files currently stored in the National Archives and make them freely available online.
Files are being digitized as funds become available; many files are currently viewable here.