According to my grandfather, his great grandfather Moses Mordeci Jacobs served in Captain Thomas Berry’s Company of the 8th Virginia Continental Army from 1776 to 1777.
Also how could I trace my family back to Germany (all I know is that he was Jewish, from Northern Germany via England, and arrived in Baltimore Md. in 1750).
First of all, be prepared to get up and drive somewhere. You cannot do all this work online. Well, you could if you pay someone. You will need to go to a genealogical library of come kind.
If you want to get some pointers to go to the big site that lists just about any genealogical site worth visiting Cyndi’s List .
Revolutionary War soldiers are pretty well documented because people need to prove descent from one to gain interest into organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Finding immigration records prior to the Revolutionary War will be a bit of a challenge. It can be done, but again, be prepared to travel.
Do you have Mormon friends?
I go to the VA State Archives all the time to conduct genealogical research (I live in the Richmond area). If you’ll send me your email address and any info you have on your ancestor I can do a quick search of the archives.
You can fill out a form from the National Archives to do a pension search. You have significant information to be able to find out of the fed govt. ever paid out a pension to this particular soldier. You may be able to find other tracing information from whatever information you get back. I found that local county courthouses rarely have records that far back; most are archived at guess where? The National Archives in D.C. You don’t have to take a trip there, but you will have to spend a little money here and there for copies and research.
I did this and the govt. had never paid out a pension to my ancestor, so I still can’t prove it. However, my ancestor had a farm in what the US Govt. deemed the “US Military District” which was a chunk of land set aside to be awarded to Rev. War veterans. There’s my proof.
Also note, that through Cyndi’s List (linked above) there are links to other sites where you can look at ship manifests and whatnot to trace ancestors back to Europe.
One no longer needs Mormon friends.
The collective family trees of the Mormons have ben collected online at http://www.familysearch.org.
However, the most easily accessed information there comes from the individual family records. In other words, each family kept its own genealogical records, and these have been combined and coordinated at the site. However, given that the original data has problems, and that full coordination has not been achieved, there are a lot of errors in the database. You can click on a person, and notice two different spouses with exactly the same name associated with them. You can then follow two different version of the same family tree, which may have different branches filled out due to coming from two different families.
It’s been helpful, I just think the caveat needs to be put out there.
You may want to run down this book and see if this is the same Moses Mordeci Jacobs.
Davis, Louise Jacobs, Jacobs history : a genealogical history of the
descendants of Moses Mordeci Jacobs, compiled by Louise Jacobs Davis, b.
1902-, Published by Elkhart, Ind.: Davis, 1975. LC74030754 , 190 p.:
ill; 25 cm., includes index. 929/.2/0973
The Daughters of the American Revolution website(dar.org) has an online function to see if they have a person in their files as a war veteran.
Just because they do, doesn’t mean your Moses Jacobs is the same as the real veteran.
I’ve been fighting a mistake made many years ago in my line, my daughter apparently could apply for and be accepted into this organization, but the individual who was actually the veteran is not the one claimed in the original membership. I’ve seen the pension records, and “Ben” noted in their files was drawing a pension in 1830, but the “Ben” actually in the line died in 1809.
My attrempts to stomp out this ignorance has apparently really pissed off several unknown very distant relatives.