New York in the Spanish-American War
There were three types of units in the Span-Am War, excluding the Navy and Marines. These were regular US Army units, Volunteer units raised by the states, and state militia/national guard units. The museum only has information regarding the Volunteer units.
There is a name index for soldiers who served in the New York Volunteer regiment during the war This will give you the regiment, volume and page number for the soldier. Once you have that information you can go to the unit rosters to get personnel information.
Link to the museum’s website: https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/conflict/spanish-american-war-1898
The link to the museum’s catalog is www.catalog.nysmm.org. This will allow you to search our different databases.
For more information on individual soldiers you can visit the New York State Archives:
Abstracts of Spanish-American War, Philippine-American War, and China Relief Expedition Military and Naval Service
Abstracts of Muster Rolls for National Guard and Naval Militia Units Mustered into Federal Service during the Spanish-American War.
Both of these are available on Ancestry.com and please note that New York State residents have free access to parts of Ancestry.com
Both of these are available on Ancestry.com.
Please note that New York State residents have free access to parts of Ancestry.com.
In addition to Ancestry.com is a related site, Fold3. Fold3 is a genealogy website that specializes in military records. If you have an All Access membership to ancestry you also get membership to Fold3.
Other places that may have information:
The Army Heritage & Education Center
950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013
(717) 245-3971
US Army Center of Military History
103 Third Avenue
Ft. McNair, DC 20319-5058
Voice: 202.685.2704
Fax: 202.685.4570
National Archives and Records Administration
700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20408
(1-866-272-6272)
New York State Library
Cultural Education Center
222 Madison Avenue
Albany, NY 12230
(518) 474-5355
New York State Archives
New York State Education Department
Cultural Education Center
Albany, NY 12230
(518) 474-6926
To search for Images see Sources of U.S. Military Images: Major Repositories
If you cannot find information on a particular soldier after reviewing these resources, the best advice is to look for information on the unit where the soldier served. You could also try searching for the unit’s commanders, who may have written memoirs or books about the war.
In addition to the above resources, a good place to search is WorldCat, www.worldcat.org, which is a database of thousands of library catalogs. However, this is more of a discovery database since you will not be able to borrow from it directly.
You might also be able to find unit histories at The Internet Archive.
Other possible resources are the local (to the solider/unit) historical societies and public libraries.
There are also two great newspaper databases:
NYS Historic Newspapers
Fulton History (This database also covers the whole state)
Finally, all NYS residents have access to different research databases through the NYS Library