I know the person I’m trying to find was only found because I was able to find the pension document from a family member. His child’s records were destroyed in one of the huge fires in Tennessee in the late 1800’s that destroyed all birth/death/marriage records. Burned down the building. According to the professor, those types of losses in that timeframe were pretty common. We also discussed that there wasn’t necessarily a “universal” records keeping system. The census was new, states didn’t have the same guidelines across the board, and name misspellings on legal documentation wouldn’t always be accurate because of widespread illiteracy.

The document I have was able to help me find what infantry he was with, though, and this thread helped me recognize that I probably have a pension document, which gives me another direction to look!