22 May 2015

Mom's Membership, Complete

     Mom's application for DAR membership was received in DC on April 5th.  Today, May 22nd, her application was verified - much to everyone's relief.  As opposed to my application, which went through my dad's line, hers was pretty difficult.  All of her family lines are complicated, many of them being "red-lined" in the DAR database (meaning there's a problem with the prior applications).  I thought that the line we chose, which traced back to Samuel Armstrong of South Carolina, and before that, Ireland, would be the simplest one.... Yeah, not so much.  And it the trouble wasn't even about the Revolutionary War Patriot!

     First of all, with the DAR, you really have to prove every fact that you put on your pedigree chart. If you "know" that someone's name was John James Doe, you need to prove it.  If you records only ever give the middle initial of 'J,' well, that's what you'll have to put on the form.  So the fact that mom's grandmother, Auline, was called Arlene by her 2nd husband, complete with a Death Certificate and Headstone that read Arlene, created issues.  In order to have her name properly recorded on Mom's application and in the DAR database, I transcribed an interview I'd previously recorded with my great-aunt where she discussed her mom's name.  We then had my mom, who conducted the interview, get the the transcription notarized.

     Moving back through her tree, we had a few places where the documents that I had needed to be reviewed and evaluated to see if they were good enough.  I discovered a few places where I didn't have the documents that I thought I had, though I had others that served as proof.  For example, I don't have the death certificate of my Great-Great Grandmother, Nina Sprouse Albea.  I do have her obit and social security application, but was surprised to not have her DC.

     Possibly the most uncertain aspect of Mom's application was the son of the Patriot.  Previously, all DAR applicants had gone through Samuel's son, William, who also served and had a pension.  We were going through Samuel's son, John.  John is listed in Samuel's will as John Armstrong. However, in all other documents he is listed as John H Armstrong.  Since there was a name variation, our registrar felt that we would need to show that John and John H were the same person.  She wrote an analysis, evaluating all John Armstrongs in the area and detailed a theory on the addition of the middle initial after our John became guardian to a younger John Armstrong.

     In another couple weeks, Mom will have her membership number and her lineage will be added to the database.  She's very happy to be a full member and to take part in this fantastic service organization.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for your posts about the DAR.I also started my proving process last fall, and was just verified last Friday.They must have been working hard to finish up a bunch before the summer.
My difficult proof was my grandmother.My idiot uncle was the person who supplied all of the information for her death certificate,and he didn't know the correct answers so he made them up.I called him to find out how he knew so many different pieces of information, and he thought it was funny to make names and dates and places up. OMG. I still can't get over it. I still have to provide New Hampshire with all the corrected information,and that is a difficult process. Gotta wonder about some people!

Alex Daw said...

I confess to being ignorant of the acronym DAR - is it Daughter of the American Revolution? I think I have read about it in other blogs. And what do you have to prove? Do you have to prove that one of your ancestors fought in the American Revolution? We have a similar thing at our local family history society. You can be a member of the Pre Separation group where you have to prove that your ancestors were in Queensland before it separated from NSW in 1859. Or there's the First Fleeters group i.e. your ancestors were part of the First Fleet that came to Australia. Pre Sep members used to have dinner once a year. I'm not sure if they still do that. Are there any benefits to being a DAR apart from the obvious heritage factor? e.g. are there clubs and gatherings around the country? I found your blog through "May I introduce you to...." Sorry for asking so many questions !

Unknown said...

Alex, yes DAR is Daughters of the American Revolution. It's a service organization for women who can trace their ancestry back to a person who served in the American Revolution (soldier, oath of fidelity, donation of food, etc). The DAR's service goals focus on Patriotism, Education and Historic Preservation and encourage members to do volunteer work in these fields. We have monthly meetings from September through May and other activities in between, mostly organized by committee (ex Project Patriot, Commemorative Events, Literacy, Lineage Research, etc). The application process is very stringent and you're genealogy has to be on point. Thanks for coming by to read my blog and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

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