Daily AncestorSurvivor's pension
A survivor's pension, marked S in Revolutionary War pension files, was a pension claimed by the veteran himself, who was called the survivor.
NARA's Revolutionary War pension files are labeled by letter. S, for survivor, marks an approved claim made by the veteran; W marks a widow's file; R marks a file whose latest application was rejected. Bounty land papers are often combined with them.
An S file usually holds the veteran's sworn declaration of service, affidavits of comrades and neighbors, and sometimes a property schedule naming his wife and children. A rejected R file can be just as useful, since the evidence about the family was gathered anyway.
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Daily Ancestor. "Survivor's pension." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/military/survivors-pension. Last checked 2026-10-03.