For those researching their Civil War ancestors the US Southern Claims
Commission (SCC) Records may be of interest. The SCC was established March
3, 1871 to settle the claims of Union loyalist Southerners during the Civil
War. The SCC was to consider the validity and justice of claims for stores
and supplies taken during the Civil War for use of the Army and Navy.

There were over 22,000 claims filed with the SCC between March 1871 and
March 1880 for property losses exceeding $60 million. About 32 percent of
the claims were approved. As the claimant had to provide testimony about
their loyalty to the Union, and prove their losses the information is of
genealogical value.

The states that were covered under the SCC include: Alabama, Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia-which was still part of Virginia
during the Civil War.

The geographical list of claims may be found at: http://tinyurl.com/j8udoy8
Original url:
http://www.slcl.org/sites/default/files/shared-files/geographical_list_of_cl
aims/scc%20geographical%20list%20of%20claimants.pdf

To read more about how to find out if your ancestor actually filed a claim,
if it was allowed, barred or disallowed, in addition to the aforementioned
geographical list see:
http://genealogy.about.com/od/records/fl/Research-in-Southern-Claims-Commiss
ion-Records.htm

Ancestry.com, FamilySearch and Fold3.com have at least partial collections.
Ancestry.com and Fold3.com are subscription based databases and require
subscription access. Local Family History Centers have subscriptions to
Ancestry.com and Fold3.com on their center computers and many public
libraries have subscriptions to Ancestry.com.
To see what FamilySearch has on SCC go to:
https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Southern_Claims_Commission

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committe