CIVIL WAR VETERAN 
Stephen A. Combs

In honor of Memorial Day, let’s find genealogical information about one of the Union soldiers buried at Sunnyside Cemetery.

photo: QHGS

Stephen A. Comb’s gravestone simply records that he served with the 25th Massachusetts Infantry, in Company D, and belonged to the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic), a fraternal organization of Union veterans. 

To find genealogical information about him—date of birth, date of death—several online databases were visited in the following order:

1. To establish the fact that Stephen A. Combs served in the Union Army, we consulted U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. 

This source provided the following information: 

“Stephen A. Combs, a bootmaker living in Massachusetts, enlisted in Company D, Massachusetts 25th Infantry Regiment, on 9 January 1865 as a Private. He survived the war and was mustered out on 13 July 1865 at Readville, Massachusetts.”

2. To find out if Stephen was a Civil War pensioner, we looked for him in the National Archives and Records Administration. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.  

This source provided the following information:

“Stephen A. Combs filed for a Civil War pension on 25 March 1889 as an Invalid. He filed this application in Colorado. His widow, Amelia Combs, filed for a Civil War Widow’s pension 25 years later, on 14 January 1914, in California.”

3. Using information from source two, we looked at the California, Death Index, 1905-1939 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.

This source provided the following information:

“Stephen A. Combs, born about 1847, died on 3 January 1914, in Los Angeles county.”

4. Finally, using information from source three, we found a digitized image of Stephen’s death certificate on the FamilySearch^® website at “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” index and images, FamilySearch, Los Angeles, Long Beach > Death certificates 1911-1915 no 140-220 > image 1327 of 2208.

This source provided the following information:

“Stephen A. Combs was born on 10 December 1846, in Haven Hill, New Hampshire. His father was Nelson Combs and his mother’s maiden name was Cummings. Stephen died, aged 67, on 3 January 1914, at his home in Long Beach, California. He and his wife lived at 514 Ohio Avenue, and they had resided there for the 2 years that they had been residents of California. Stephen was buried in Sunnyside Cemetery, and the undertaker in charge of his interment was E. H. Cleveland.”

The four sources cited above create only the barest outline of Stephen A. Combs’ life. To find out more about him—to make his story “come alive”—we can use U.S. Census records to trace his journey from New Hampshire to Massachusetts to Colorado, and thence to Long Beach, California. We can also look at marriage records to find out when and where he married Amelia. To learn about the Massachusetts 25th Infantry, we can read books and consult online websites covering the unit’s Civil War exploits. Additionally, we can look at microfilms of old Long Beach newspapers available at the Main Branch of the Long Beach Public Library to find Stephen's obituary, as well as any articles that might describe his activities in this city. For information about the library’s newspaper holdings, go to http://www.lbpl.org/history/.

Stephen A. Combs’ inscription teaches us that a single gravestone may not provide any of the genealogical information we seek, but it can lead to sources that do provide the dates and names we need.     

RESEARCH TIP: When you are recording family burials in a cemetery, examine each gravestone thoroughly. Look at the front, the sides, the back, and the top for inscriptions. Photograph the gravestones from all angles so you can review the information on them when you get home. And don’t forget to take pictures of surrounding stones as well—they may be relatives you haven’t discovered yet!