Researching War of 1812 Soldiers

If you are researching War of 1812 soldiers please be aware that many soldiers changed their names. I became aware of this when I wrote: https://llewellyn-genealogy.ghost.io/lewellin-patriots/

During the period from 1812 to 1815, it was relatively common for soldiers to change their names using aliases. There were several reasons for this.

They enlisted under an alias to hide their true identity. They were often running from legal trouble, debt, family obligations or a spouse. Some were indentured servants, apprentices or formerly enslaved people seeking freedom.

Secondly, they were avoiding detection after desertion or prior service. Desertion rates were high in the armies of the period on both the American and the British side. A man might desert one unit, then re-enlist elsewhere under a new name to collect another enlistment bounty. This was called "bounty jumping." British deserters captured while serving in American forces were sometimes treated harshly as traitors. American records occasionally note "see also" entries on index cards linking two names for the same person, often due to aliases from re-enlistment or clerical cross-referencing.

Also, the aliases occur due to the rather lax use of informal name use. Spelling variations were extreme in the era, which were due to low literacy and inconsistent record keeping. Some men went by nicknames, middle names, or anglicized versions of foreign names. In militia units (the bulk of American forces) record keeping was often local and haphazard leading to apparent "changes."

Genealogists frequently highlight that in the War of 1812 compiled service records and pension files sometimes list aliases or "true name" declarations. For example, one veteran affidavit states he enlisted as "John Rose" but his real name was "Oliver French."

Registers of U.S. Army enlistments (1798-1914) explicitly advises researchers to check for aliases, nicknames and variant spellings. Similar practices existed in British forces during the Napoleonic Wars (contemporaneous with 1812) where deserters often assumed new identities.

It was not as sytematic or dramatic as in later wars like the American Civil War, (where bounty jumping became notorious), but it was common enough that military archivists and modern researchers routinely look for multiple names when tracing a soldier. If you're researching a specific person who appears to have changed names, checking both regular army and state militia records (plus pension applications, which often include affidavits explaining name discrepancies) is a good strategy.