The American Revolutionary War began in 1775 after years of rising tension between the ruling British and residents of the American colonies who desired independence. By the time the war came to a close in 1783, over 250,000 combatants had died, but America had become an independent nation, in charge of her own destiny.
Discover how to trace soldiers who fought on both sides of the conflict in historical records with these websites.
1. US National Archives
If you’re researching individuals who fought on the American side, this page details some of the records at the National Archives in Washington DC. Many have already been digitised and are at Fold3, or Forces War Records in the UK. This page has sections on military service records, prisoners of war, court records and the Thirteen Colonies’ Continental Congress. Via the Citizen Archivist Dashboard you can help transcribe military pension files, which are mainly organised by location. These can contain valuable details about veterans and their families, such as rank, unit, period of service, age, residence, date and place of marriage, and date and place of death of spouse.
2. FamilySearch
This page has a short history of the war, with links to sources of background reading including books on major battles (some are in the website’s Digital Library), national and state archives, Congress and the Continental Army. There are links to free and subscription-based collections, as well as FamilySearch’s own records. ‘United States, Revolutionary War Compiled Service Records, 1775–1783’, for example, is a database of about 80,000 US soldiers; the index is free, and Fold3/Forces War Records has the documents. And ‘United States, Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775–1783’ has images of muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other personnel, pay and supply records.
3. The Loyalist Collection
There were plenty of citizens who supported the British during the war, many of whom fled the new administration, taking refuge in British territories such as Nova Scotia in Canada. This website details the Loyalist Collection of British, US and early Canadian sources from c1760–1867. The collection has its origin in the late 1960s when a transatlantic project involving the likes of the University of London and the City University of New York was launched to identify, list and microfilm Loyalist sources in the USA, Great Britain and Canada. The site includes a database of about 6,000 Loyalists from New Brunswick, compiled by Canadian historian Esther Clark Wright.
4. Expert's choice: Founders Online
Chosen by Samantha Wilcoxson, author of James Alexander Hamilton and Women of the American Revolution:
"My favourite website for researching the American Revolution is Founders Online from the US National Archives. I’ve made extensive use of the site while writing three of my books, both fiction and nonfiction, and I love the wealth of original information at my fingertips. The site is free to use and includes thousands of pages of digitised letters and documents written by and to those who had an impact on early US history.
"The name of the website does not indicate its true depth, because you can search for documents from the Colonial era starting in 1706 through to the Jacksonian era ending in 1836. Also not only men’s correspondence is included, which has proved helpful to my research.
"For example, the database includes 1,287 letters written by Abigail Adams, the wife of the second president John Adams and the mother of the sixth president John Quincy Adams.
"Those performing family research can search for names and events, and can also filter and sort according to author, recipient and date. Since the collection is annotated, valuable results can be found where a name or term was indirectly referred to by the writer. For example, a search for my own last name brings up a letter that was written by John Adams with William Howard Wilcoxson mentioned in the annotated notes.
"The documents are not all official correspondence, but include many personal missives, such as those between Founding Father Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, both before and after she became his wife. Founders Online is a treasure trove of information for those with family links to the American Revolution."
Revolutionary War records: More websites
5. Ancestry
This collection records the names of Black and Native American soldiers in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War (1775–1783).
6. Billion Graves
The database of GPS-tagged tombstone images could be useful for tracking down the resting place of relations who took part in the war.
7. Chronicling America
This is a wonderful free gateway to the Library of Congress’ digitised newspapers (1756–1963).
8. Internet Archive
The Internet Archive offers free digitised copies of out-of-copyright books, with many books on the Revolutionary War, including The War of the Revolution (1952) by Christopher Ward.
9. Library of Congress
Here you can familiarise yourself with the crucial documents relating to the American Revolution.
10. Museum of the American Revolution
The Philadelphia museum’s website includes the Patriots of Color Archive, featuring documents now available to search via Ancestry.
11. New York Public Library
This page lists resources for researching soldiers.
12. State Archives
View details of state archives across the USA.
13. Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s useful content about the conflict includes a list of units in the Continental Army.
