Bounty Land application files are wonderful and I've used several of them in my research on my children's ancestry, but this is the first actual discharge certificate I've encountered. Fortunately for James Kile he held onto it for forty years until he needed it to prove up his bounty land application.
We will be writing about this bounty land application and redeemed warrant file in future posts, but this is an interesting set of documents. James died after he received the warrant and before a patent was issued for any specific property. Consequently his heirs obtained the property after his death--meaning there is a wonderful set of documents documenting his eleven children who survived him.
Stay tuned....