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Saturday, September 27, 2008

Civil War Record of Joseph Madison Carroll Norman

I am currently researching the family of my great-great grandfather Joseph Madison Carroll Norman of Talladega County, Alabama and Garland County, Arkansas. (At this point it is not in-depth research; I am rather trying to do basic research and organize and clarify what I have already learned about him, his three wives, and their children -- reportedly some 26 or 27 in all -- to be entered into my genealogy program.) Researching JMC Norman involves several challenges. The first is simply to sort out and identify as many of his children as possible, no small undertaking considering how many of them there were. This also means that he most likely has a large number of descendants, and a few of them have apparently already done some research on him. The second challenge is figuring out his Civil War record. A search on the National Park Service's Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System using different forms of his name turns up four items: a Joseph M. C. Norman in Company H, 25th Alabama Infantry, a Joseph M. C. Norman in Company B, 3rd Alabama Infantry, a Joseph C. Norman in Company B, 28th Alabama Infantry, and a Jos. M. C. Norman at the Camp of Instruction, Talladega, Alabama. It is possible that the Joseph C. Norman is another man, but there is a record for a Joseph C. Norman being discharged at Oxford, Mississippi for disability on 4/1/1862 and that is consistent with what I know about JMC Norman. I have received a copy of his and his widow's applications for Confederate service pensions and the only unit named in those documents is the 25th Infantry (or at least in most parts; the first page of his application gives the regiment as the 21st). It may be that he cites only that unit because his medical condition (reported as rheumatism) dated to that time or, as has been the case for other ancestors who fought in the Civil War, assimilation of units into other units over the course of the war may account for some of the confusion. I will soon be signing up for Footnote.com to try to solve this mystery.

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