Did your ancestor fight at Saratoga? You can check - Military Travel, hottest travel destinations - Military Times

Did your ancestor fight at Saratoga? You can check

Descendants of Revolutionary War soldiers who fought in one of history’s most important battles now can find their American ancestors in a computer database, and someday they may be guided by GPS to the exact spots where their relatives faced musket fire, cannon barrages and bayonet charges.

The database, recently unveiled at Saratoga National Historical Park near Stillwater, N.Y., contains the names of about 15,000 of the more than 17,000 soldiers of the Continental Army and various state militias who defeated the British in the Battles of Saratoga in 1777.

About 2,500 more American names are being added, while the names of most of the 9,000 enemy combatants — British soldiers, German mercenaries, Canadians and loyalists — are expected to join the database in several years, said Eric Schnitzer, a National Parks Service ranger and park historian. The names of some of the Native Americans who fought — Oneidas for the Americans, Mohawks for the British — also will be added, he said.

Tourists can search the database for names using a touchscreen computer in the park’s visitor center. The list is also available on the website of Heritage Hunters — www.saratoganygenweb.com — the group of volunteers who scoured 18th-century regimental muster rolls and other records to compile the list.

By knowing a soldier’s regiment, park rangers can help visitors find the general area on the 3,400-acre battlefield where each unit is known to have fought or been encamped, Schnitzer said.

The project was made possible by the detailed records kept by many American regiments, dispelling a perception of America’s first citizen soldiers as ragtag and undisciplined, Schnitzer said.

The digitized “muster roll” at Pennsylvania’s Valley Forge National Historical Park — started on paper in the 1940s — now contains names of more than 33,000 American soldiers who camped there in the winter of 1777-78. But Saratoga is considered unique for compiling what is expected to become a nearly complete list of battle participants, one parks official said.

“Saratoga is very much in the lead in getting it digitized,” said James Perry, spokesman for the parks service’s Yorktown Battlefield in Virginia. Perry said Yorktown is in the early stages of compiling its own database.

At the Saratoga Battlefield, soldiers are listed alphabetically. Each entry includes rank, regiment, length of service and home state. Some hometowns and personal information is also listed.

More than 10,000 of the soldiers who fought in the Battles of Saratoga hailed from New England. Most of the rest were backwoodsmen from Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The Americans defeated an invading British force Oct. 7, 1777, nearly three weeks after the redcoats won the first battle but couldn’t advance south toward Albany because of heavy losses. After the second battle, the British force retreated several miles north before being surrounded. British Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered Oct. 17.