List of Claims Made Against the U.S. Government
This article originally appeared in "Court Records" by Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, FUGA, Loretto Dennis Szucs, FUGA, and Arlene H. Eakle, Ph.D. in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy
This article is a summary of the types of claims made against the United States government from 1774 through World War II with the agency responsible to deal with them, the record group number, and a brief description of the contents and/or location.
| Table of Claim | Date | Name Index | NARA Record Group | Comments/Description |
| Claims Barred By Statute of Limitations, Adjusted and Allowed | 1810 | See comments | Printed in American State Papers. Use Phillip W. McMullin, Grassroots of America (Provo, Utah: Gendata, 1972) for some claims as volume indexes are unreliable. Online index and text for American State Papers at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/hlawquery.html. | |
| Claims of Persons, Circumstances Barred by Limitations | 1792 | Yes | 1,500 revolutionary war soldiers pensioned under an act of 27 March 1792. See Mary G. Ainsworth, "Recently Discovered Records Relating to Revolutionary War Veterans Who Applied for Pensions Under the Act of 1792," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 46 (1958): 8-13, 73-78 | |
| Private Claims Submitted to Congress | 1774 to present | 360;233 (House) 46 (Senate) | Published as Congressional Documents. Arranged alphabetically to form an easily accessible index, 1789-1891 (House), 1815-1909 (Senate). Fully searchable text online at <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/hlawquery.html>.
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| Quartermaster Claims | 1839-94 | NARA M-film M1999: Index to Quartermaster Claims. 1 roll. | 92 | Four manuscript vols., claims relating to services, supplies, or transportation furnished to or requisitioned for the army. Supporting documents may have been destroyed. Includes Mexican War claims, 1847-58, and civilian claims (mostly Mexican War teamsters), 1848-60 |
| Fourth of July Claims | 1861-70 | Volume indexes | 92 | Sixty-eight vols. (manuscripts with supporting case files); include rejected claims. Volumes arranged by auditors'numbers, related papers filed by register numbers. 29 vols. (manuscripts with supporting case files); arranged by year. Rejected claims arranged by box numbers. Incomplete 2-vol. register to rejected claims. Must prove loyal citizen of loyal state. Valuable, covers country. 36 vols. (manuscripts with supporting correspondence and case files) |
| 1871-90 | Partial indexes only | |||
| Civil War Claims | 1861-94 | Some volume indexes | 92 | Transportation, personal services for persons later deceased, horses and mules, extra duty, bounty arrears, property damage, rents, and other matters. Indexes, where they exist, are incomplete. |
| Transportation Claims | 1871-87 | Some volume indexes | 92 | 131 registers, including ocean and lake vessels, railroad accounts connected with military operations, ferries |
| Confederate Horse Claims | 1901-14 | No | 92 | Claims for paroled Confederate soldiers whose arms and horses were seized by Union soldiers in violation of the terms of surrender. Files arranged by members from general correspondence of the quartermaster general, 1890-1914 |
| Alabama Claims | 1872 | Yes | 76 | List of documents and correspondence in the cases of U.S. and Great Britain indexing the claims for losses to Confederate ships Alabama, Shenandoah, Florida, Tallahassee. Description of cases in Revised List of Claims . . . Known as the Alabama Claims Preliminary Inventory 135, Records Relating to Civil War Claims, United States and Great Britain. |
| Southern Claims Commission | 1871-80 | Yes | 217 | Approved claims |
| 233 | Disallowed claims filed with records of House of Representatives. Gary B. Mills, comp., Southern Loyalists in the Civil War: A Composite Directory of Case Files Created by the U.. Commissioners of Claims, 1871-1880, Including Those Appealed to the War Claims Committee...(Reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2004). 22,298 claims were submitted by Southerners who swore they were loyal to the Union; 7,092 were allowed. Includes interrogatories (detailed questionnaires) filled out by all applicants A search path for locating granted and disbarred claims is at <www.slcl.org/branches/hq/sc/scc/steps.htm>. The Tennessee State Library index identifies 3, 929 Tennesseans who submitted claims; see http://www.state.in.us/sos/statelib/pubsvs/sccintro www.state.in.us/sos/statelib/pubsvs/sccintro | |||
| laims of Citizens of Kansas | 1858-61 | online index to Strickler at http://www.territorialkansasonline.org | Report of General H.J. Strickler, Commissioner for Auditing Claims for Kansas Territory 35th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Misc. Doc. 43, serial 1017 (1858-59); 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Reports 104, serial 1106. Indexes are incomplete. Claims awarded for property damage by marauding raiders, e.g., Quantrell | |
| Hearings, Committee on War Claims | 1910-14 | Volume indexes | 63rd Cong., 2nd Sess., H. Reports 124. Many available on microfiche | |
| Claims Commissions, United States and Mexico | 1839-1938 | Yes | 76 | Include cases of seizure of property, quartering of troops, illegal arrest and maltreatment of prisoners, boundary claims, prize cases submitted by local residents. Several thousand claims were accepted. See Preliminary Inventory 136: Records of United States and Mexican Claims Commission |
| War Relocation Authority (Japanese Americans) | 1941-46 | Japanese American Internee Data File and Index at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/display-partial-records.jsp? | 210 | 9,000 Japanese-Americans moved out of military zones in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arkansas, and Hawaii voluntarily. More than 100,000 were forced to evacuate by the War Relocation Authority. See Preliminary Inventory 77: Records of the War Relocation Authority |
| World War II Exclusion Files | 1941-48 | 153 | Relocation of German and Italian aliens, U.S. citizens of German and Italian heritage in military zones. Alphabetically arranged by surname | |
| More detail on these claims records and their locations and finding aids are in Anne Bruner Eales and Robert M. Kvasnicka. Genealogical Research in the National Archives (NARA, 2000), pp 307'14. For information on the record groups listed, see Robert B. Matchette, et al., Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives of the United States (NARA, 1995); regularly updated web version online. | ||||
