Patriots vs. Loyalists: Revolutionary Discoveries

Revolutionary War research presents unique genealogical challenges, as records are scattered across multiple countries and unconventional sources. Kathleen answers audience questions from her recent presentation, explaining why ancestors vanish from Revolutionary War records.

For presentation handouts and slides from Kathleen's April 12th presentation "From Muskets to Manuscripts," visit linktr.ee/hittinthebricks

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Podcast Introduction

John 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America , the Kansas City on the other side of the mighty Moe , welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen . I am John , your humble hubby host , and today Kathleen will be answering questions about the Revolutionary War loyalists . There's a lot to cover , so let's start Hittin' the Bricks .

Kathleen 0:20

Hey , baby hey baby , did I tell you , yesterday I met a guy who reminded me so much of your brother . He looked just like you and Dan , except he was taller .

John 0:34

And .

Kathleen 0:34

I kept Dan's not that tall , but I had to actually double check that he didn't have a tattoo on .

John 0:40

Wow , where was this ?

Kathleen 0:41

At a quick trip up north . He said you looked at me funny , what's that about ? And I said you look like my husband and my brother-in-law .

John 0:50

Oh yeah , he thought you were coming on too .

Kathleen 0:52

No , he didn't . I said my husband and my brother-in-law , and he took off his glasses and said are they good looking like me ? That's what made me think about it .

John 1:12

They're ? Are they good looking like me ? That's what made me think about it .

Kathleen 1:14

They're shorter , but yeah , they're really good looking . Yeah , he's my husband . You're giving away the family secrets .

John 1:17

Yeah , um , okay , anyway , yeah , anyway , okay . So you did a presentation last week which was , uh , successful by all metrics . Congratulations on that . I know that was a lot of fun , but you're not you don't have too many more of those in your future , do you ?

Kathleen 1:30

I have no more plan John .

John 1:32

I am supposed to be retired .

Kathleen 1:35

I'm supposed to be retired . You can't tell by my workload , but I am supposed to be retired , at least from the research side . I did say I would still do presentations , but I'm now only going to do full day keynote speaking presentations or colleges and universities .

John 1:52

Well , cool um the dog , and I are happy to hear that you'll be available more often kathleen will be available for feeding the dog now , oh no , I have a presentation every morning at 7 o'clock . Okay , but on your presentation , I know that you had some questions that people had and it was a one-hour presentation . You guys were really tightly scheduled . I remember you had about 50 minutes or you had a full hour and it was really just a 10 10 minute break between speakers , right .

Kathleen 2:25

That is correct and it was a very tight schedule . It was one hour for me to cover all of the Revolutionary War . The Revolutionary War lasted a little longer than an hour . And then the person after me , bill Edelman , did the Civil War , and then we had the State Archives and someone from the Midwest Genealogy Center . It was an excellent day to spend with people who love what you love , but it's just that there's no way I could have gotten to all the questions .

John 2:55

So now we've got some of those questions that we're going to take care of on the podcast , so do you want to introduce them ?

Kathleen 3:02

Well , there's about seven .

John 3:05

Okay .

Kathleen 3:06

The biggest bulk of them were on the Loyalists , which I thought was interesting .

John 3:12

Okay , so in the Loyalists we're talking about Revolutionary War Loyalists .

Kathleen 3:16

That's correct .

John 3:17

Those were the folks who were completely happy with the life they had ,

Missing Revolutionary War Records

John 3:22

being subjects of England . The taxes and tariffs didn't bother them at all because they were already set up . My understanding was and so these are the people who still didn't mind paying extra tax on their slaves after the Stamp Act .

Kathleen 3:37

Okay , so let's .

John 3:41

Truly , the loyalists were people of property , weren't they ?

Kathleen 3:44

Many of them were people of property , weren't they ? Many of them were people of property . They were really loyal to the British flag .

John 3:50

The questions I had John , the British half-crown .

Kathleen 3:55

What were they actually loyal ? To so , john the biggest question we got was around where are the records ? Why can't I find my revolutionary war soldier , the regular americans ? We could trace them by our landies , right by state militia records and so forth right so let's start with number one okay , oh , you want me to read that , okay , okay .

John 4:20

Why can't I find my revolutionary war soldier , soldier records ? Well , that would be a good one .

Kathleen 4:26

So the reason is because you're not looking in the right place .

John 4:30

Well , that's the same reason I can't find my car keys or the dog bone .

Kathleen 4:35

Exactly so we solved that . So number two no hold on , john , that's not quite solved All right . One of the things people think is they can see their ancestor go into the Revolutionary War . Sometimes they see them coming out really early or they might even see a death and they're looking for that was a lot of these . War camps were breeding grounds for diseases . Because they're so close , they're sharing all of these issues right and people forget that a lot of people died of consumption , which was tuberculosis .

John 5:17

They call it consumption , but it's tuberculosis . But we have that licked now , right , there's no cases of TB with our vaccinations and things like that . That hasn't been a problem in centuries , right , or this year in Kansas . But why would that be ? I can't imagine Go ahead . I can't either , because A Revolutionary War disease is raising its head again . I wonder why .

Kathleen 5:41

Okay . Well , john , there is an author who talks about it who is really intriguing . I just read a book on it . She talks about the vaccine , how it came about for TB , because this is a disease from the 1700s , right the 18th and 19th century .

John 6:00

What was the book ?

Kathleen 6:01

The book is called the Black Angels . It talks about the untold stories of how they got to the vaccine of TB , but it is so well researched . It is not only researched about TB and how they got to the vaccine , but also the historical impact what was going on in America while they were trying to trying to develop a vaccine ?

John 6:24

And so is this fictionalized history .

Kathleen 6:27

This is non-fictional , but it is well told through eyes of one of the nurses , one of the last ones that is still alive . So we get to follow her family line , meaning that she was the second generation of a nurse at the Seaview Hospital . So it is really well told as a story . You get invested in the families and the patients , as well as the doctors and the scientists .

John 6:55

Okay , well , the reason I'm tying that why ?

Kathleen 6:58

The reason I'm tying that is because if you understand the background of something , it makes a little more sense . Consumption was even an epidemic in the 1700s and 1800s and we see it as consumption . It doesn't become tuberculosis till about 1850s , and so at that point you'll see it differently . On death certificates or documents , the early letters , that's what you'll see , but it doesn't necessarily say he died from this disease .

John 7:35

so , your revolutionary soldier , you might find a letter or correspondence or something in a military record so in the case of having contracting consumption , I would assume assume that the goal when they identified it was to get them away from the other soldiers . So is it possible that my revolutionary soldier was pulled from his unit and stuck ?

Kathleen 8:00

in a sanatorium or a terium which ?

John 8:02

was it a sanatorium or a sanitarium , An institution of some sort ? But no , they did not have them at that point . That is correct A sanatorium or a terium , which ?

Kathleen 8:04

was it ? A sanatorium or a sanitarium ? I don't know An institution of some sort .

John 8:06

But no , they did not have them at that point . Oh , they didn't .

Kathleen 8:08

They normally sent them home to infect the rest of the community . John Well , fantastic , but that's why- .

John 8:16

Nothing makes you appreciate medical advances more than a little bit of history .

Kathleen 8:21

So that's one of the reasons . It A little bit of history . So that's one of the reasons . It's just because of sickness , how they handled sickness , and where was your ancestor at the time and who was he fighting for ? Because he might not have been at

Disease and Epidemics in War

Kathleen 8:34

all . We were mentioning loyalists , and there's also the Hessians , there's the militia .

John 8:39

Okay , but is that a good intro now to talking about the loyalists ? Because the loyalists , they wouldn't have had tuberculosis , I'm sure , or consumption , they would have had their own tent , away from the other . No , they wouldn't have been fighting at all , they would have had a deferred . They would have been deferred right .

Kathleen 8:55

That's the reason why you might not find them . Any of your Revolutionary War records because of epidemics , Because of epidemics and because of death . Because of epidemics .

John 9:01

Because of epidemics and because of death . They might have died on the road .

Kathleen 9:06

So let's just talk about the Loyalists who they were first .

John 9:09

Well , first , how many Loyalists fought in the Revolutionary War ? What percentage are we talking about ? If we have a percentage on that , is that a lot of them that did that ?

Kathleen 9:16

Well , there was a total of up to 25,000 . Remember , the people fighting for the colony were the patriots ?

John 9:25

Yeah , they were the traitors .

Kathleen 9:26

They were the patriots .

John 9:27

Traitors to the crown .

Kathleen 9:28

They were traitors to the crown . Okay , they're called the patriots .

John 9:32

Yes , we call them patriots , right . When they're fighting for the cause we support , they're patriots .

Kathleen 9:40

Yes , Freedom fighters , I imagine . So .

John 9:44

John , one man's patriot is another man's terrorist .

Kathleen 9:47

Okay , the patriot records are the ones that are easiest to find . The others are everywhere . And when I say the others , it's the loyalists and the mercenaries . Right , the Hessians Did that answer your question of how many there were . Oh , let me add to that , although there was only about 25,000 loyalists who fought for the crown , as in the British crown , you also had the mercenaries who fought for the British crown , which was another 25% of their army , and you should know that just because they didn't fight for it didn't mean they weren't pro-loyalist . So there were about a half a million of the population was really pro-loyalist .

John 10:31

Yeah , it makes sense . Yeah , it makes sense , and I would assume that would be a group of people that benefited from the relationship with England in spite of their draconian rules on the records . I think that's one of the next questions that was asked is where are the records ?

Kathleen 11:01

Well , some of them are in prison records because they did go to the prison of the Patriots .

John 11:08

At a certain point , then they might end up being captured and put in prison .

Kathleen 11:12

That is true , some were . But one of the other things I want to mention about that the british paid them and the canadians also accepted them . So there's also these pension records that the lawyers uh , they didn't get pensions from the us , obviously , but they did get it from other governments so is it possible that I might need to check pension records in England to find out that is correct ?

John 11:42

You're going across the pond again , England .

Kathleen 11:43

Canada . You can find a lot of records , though , also on the United States side too , but you have to go also to the state side , like New York , massachusetts .

John 11:55

They're also listed in some of the county probate records in the south , so you just have to really expand your search uh , what would indicate that my ancestor was fought in the british army , or it was a loyalist , as opposed to fought in the continental army ?

Kathleen 12:14

it's up to the researcher to do enough research to learn that .

John 12:18

There's not just a big arrow pointing at .

Kathleen 12:21

No , Okay , there are certain these records we are looking for a name Also in 1840 , the census records talk about the pensioners for really the colonies , pensioners for really the colonies . But we also will see records that might mention the loyalists or the mercenaries , because a lot of them did not leave the United States after the Revolutionary War .

John 12:47

So even the ones that fought for the loyalists .

Kathleen 12:49

All of the mercenaries . Those mercenaries decided to stay .

John 12:52

Yes , Like whoa , this is such a bad place after all .

Kathleen 12:57

A lot of them were getting paid . They got paid much more than our soldiers in the colonies . But they also realized that they didn't really have to fight . They signed a contract , but they never went back to England or Germany . Rather , they didn't have to fight and so they just stayed in America and they deserted the entire mercenary service that they were supposed to be doing . I'm going to have to get an opinion on that .

John 13:23

I don't even know where to land on that . I think I feel like I should be judging someone . I should be calling somebody some kind of well , my God , they have no respect for contracts or you know . I don't know where to land on that . So give me a week and next podcast , I'll tell you how I feel about the mercenaries that fought on both sides . Right now , my opinion is rather low .

Kathleen 13:50

They didn't necessarily fight on both sides , they just didn't go back , and they might have deserted instead of camp somewhere . Well , that might be even worse .

John 13:56

That might be even worse . I might have more of a problem for those who just decided to stay and not even fight . Sorry , so .

Kathleen 14:06

John , I'm going to write a blog for repositories that people might want to research in , especially if they've gotten to

Locating Loyalist Records

Kathleen 14:13

the point that they know that their ancestors are loyalists . We have to think out of the box as to where are those records ? So where ?

John 14:21

are those records ?

Kathleen 14:21

They're in prisoner of war records . They're in state and local governments . They're in confiscation of estate records .

John 14:29

They are so you really do have to just kind of dig through . You're going to get an indication at some point .

Kathleen 14:35

Yeah , one of the big sets of records that I like to go to when I'm doing the research is the Library and Archives of Canada , which is LAC . That is a really big one . I'm looking for land petitions . What's LAC Library and Archives of Canada ? Wow , and they would hold things like the land petitions , the military service records , the loyalist muster rolls .

Kathleen 14:57

That's a great place to start your research . If you can't find them and you were told that they served in the Revolutionary War , that's a good place to start . And loyalist claims , because remember the British crown was also awarding land as well as pay to those , to their soldiers . There's another record that I like that actually has already followed some family trees and it is the united empire of loyalists association of canada and they have compiled biographies and family histories and and some research tips so I would put all of this so you can find some like first-hand accounts of of loyalists well , it might be that their paperwork is already compiled within this organization , because somebody has already traced your ancestor oh , okay , okay , so that would be , that would be , and again , of course , it'll be in your A3 genealogy blog .

Kathleen 15:55

Yes , and John , I must remind you that these people , I must , I must remind you , john , that our Loyalists , after the Revolutionary War , they might have settled in the Caribbean or in Ontario or Quebec , nova . Scotia is a really big place .

John 16:14

Yes , Because they might not have been too welcome or felt too welcomed in the colonies after .

Kathleen 16:22

That is correct also , I find

Loyalists: Who They Were and How Many

Kathleen 16:25

them sometimes up there on that border in Albany , new York area that they come back and forth . Over the years I have found quite a few who went from New York , went to Canada way after the Revolutionary War , came back to the stateside . So , john , we're on number six of the questions now .

John 16:44

Well , this would be the Hessen .

Kathleen 16:46

Oh , I don't know about the Hessen Mercenary .

John 16:48

Yeah .

Kathleen 16:49

Yes , so the Hessen mercenaries .

John 16:51

They were Germans right .

Kathleen 16:52

They were Germans and they were paid by the Brits to fight for the crown and they were paid really well . But if you were a slave , if you were from the South , if those are just fighting in exchange for freedom .

Kathleen 17:09

That is correct and that is a big question that came up even in the presentation , not just for Revolutionary War but for the Civil War . A lot of our soldiers thought that they were just running away and grabbing guns somehow and if they could get on the Union line they were free . But a lot of those in the South or even in Southern Missouri couldn't just get to a union line like that .

John 17:39

I mean one of the reasons why slave narratives are so compelling , then it's because we think in distances , in cars . When you say now we're going to do two to five hundred miles from the South on foot , yeah , and not get caught ? Yeah , not get caught . And you're going , you're gonna have to eat .

Kathleen 17:57

yeah , it's completely different so , just like my ancestors , in both the civil war on my uh , my paternal side and on the revolutionary war on my maternal side , they were substitutes . They substituted for a white man who didn't want to do the service , and they would purchase enslaved people and make agreements with their enslaver so that they could fight in their stead and in that case- .

John 18:26

Well , you know , a lot

Hessian Mercenaries and African American Soldiers

John 18:27

of wealthy landowners at the time too had bone spurs .

Kathleen 18:31

I heard was a thing that affects very , very I am going to go back to the Revolution and civil war before I come over there and pop you on the head . But so the revolutionary and the civil war , we were talking about the Hessians , right , right . The Hessians , as I mentioned . They got these great salaries to come here and they got free transportation . So once they got here , they may have fought , they may not have fought . They were not really loyal . It was a financial move for them .

John 19:03

And so , while I do have German in my background , as far as I know none were related . I came over much later than any of the Hessians that might have been fighting for the crown .

Kathleen 19:14

John , your family didn't come till after the Civil War .

John 19:17

That's my point .

Kathleen 19:18

That's my point we weren't here for all this mess .

John 19:22

Nope , that wasn't our dig .

Kathleen 19:23

So I mentioned the African-American disparity in pay , but there were up to about 9,000 men . African American men are often seen as mulatto . If they were biracial , they served in the Continental Army and in the Navy and in the militia . So we can't forget them . That was one of our questions , john , was how many African Americans and mulatto soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War and did they get paid ? The answer is some got paid . So I already mentioned the free colors in the North were paid , the same as the white soldiers . Those in the South did not necessarily , because it was by state , by militia and whether or not they were free . And there are certain ones that everyone knows about , like the Rhode Island Revolutionary War soldiers . They are well known in our history books .

John 20:20

If we have history books .

Kathleen 20:23

And so I mention that , because what this person asked me about , the actual pay of it on that same blog post I'll put up a disparity chart so that the uh attendee of that presentation on the 12th will have that , and also where to get the information for african-american revolutionary war research . Oh great , one of the questions that's not on this list but I got is do african americans belong to the dar and the sar ? And the answer to that is yes . I don't , because I wish not to , but I have friends who are african americans who have joined , and other genealogists a black genealogist who are members of the dar I would .

John 21:11

I would think that they should be . They fought for the same thing , have been fighting for the same thing since the revolutionary war . One could argue they are still fighting for the same things they fought for in the revolutionary war .

Kathleen 21:24

Um and so that's what they do remain sons and daughters I proudly , proudly , brag about my Ned Griffin from North Carolina , and he did get his freedom from it . He did not get paid , but he did get his freedom . And when you are enslaved and you're fighting as a substitute for your freedom , the money goes to the enslaver right , they buy . They buy your freedom they buy your freedom , your enslaver right .

John 21:56

So then that makes sense in the ill way that , uh , owning people makes sense . Yes , there's sense to this there's sense to this . There's , there's sense to the senseless , absolutely did I miss any questions ? Questions . John , I don't think so . This must have been a lot of fun and I can understand why you'd have these questions . Since your presentation was only an hour , I can understand there might have been a whole bunch more if you covered this kind of territory .

Kathleen 22:25

Yes , there were . The handouts of that presentation with the slides are online at linktreecom . Slash a3genealogy .

John 22:35

I believe you could check the show notes and you'll find the link .

Kathleen 22:40

Kim seriously cut that out ?

John 22:42

No , I'm going to play this just the way it is . There's not an edit going on in here .

Kathleen 22:47

Please don't .

John 22:49

I'm hitting upload at the end of this .

Kathleen 22:51

Go ahead so , john , anyone who attended the april the 12th presentation on the revolutionary war , from muskets to manuscripts that particular one I put on link tree hitting the bricks oh , okay so you have to go to the link tree slash hitting thein' the Bricks . You will see a link there , but you have to be a subscriber to access the slides or the handout is there .

John 23:20

Why am I subscribing to Linktree ?

Kathleen 23:22

You could connect to everything we do , and then that way you have our social media links . You have the sales for Ancestry or MyHeritage .

John 23:31

I put those up yesterday , so you can get information from there at your leisure . You're not going to be put on a list , we're not selling your information and all that .

Kathleen 23:41

No , and we don't do anything with their emails at all , except every once in a while we give away a gift and if that's the case , we announce that we're giving away a gift and we send out an email to you to say you won . All right , so what else do you ? Have missy I think , um , that's 38 minutes of me babbling . John , I do have a lot of ancestry dna kits sitting on my desk that I need to give away . Oh , is that that stack ?

John 24:08

I'm looking at them . I'm looking at them from here . There's a whole stack , is that it ? Can you really see them ? Yeah , I can see them . And you know what I can also see ? I can see a Rolodex , a card Rolodex .

Kathleen 24:19

I use my card Rolodex . I'm sorry .

John 24:23

I think you've had that since corporate

Final Thoughts and Resources

John 24:25

. I swear you , you stole that from Sprint International in Reston 40 years ago .

Kathleen 24:34

I did not steal it , I think Bill . Scheibel is still looking for his Rolodex that you stole from him , bill Scheibel yes , I have one , two , three , four , five , six ancestry and one MyHeritage .

John 24:49

Okay , so six or seven ancestry or MyHeritage . And so six or seven Ancestry or MyHeritage , and what do they need to do to get those ?

Kathleen 24:53

Ask me a question . Ask me a question , but they have to be a subscriber .

John 24:58

Well , congratulations , you made it to the end of another episode . Thanks so much for staying . Thanks to new listeners from the Czech Republic , Bangladesh and Norway . Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca Brandt for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing . The theme song for Hittin' the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisknuckle and the Dutchess Watch for the next appearance at the Haberdashery in Saint-Denis . You can find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts . Do you have a genealogical question for Kathleen ? Drop us a line at hittinthebricks at gmailcom and let us know .