have you ever used the application papers of the Daughters of the American Revolution dar
in your research you should in this episode of the ancestral findings podcast I'll talk
about what you may find in them and where you can access the records
you
there are a lot of different record sources out there you can use to discover your ancestors some
of them are well known others are lesser known and some are totally unknown and you may be the
first person to accidentally come across them in generations one of the lesser-known record
sources for discovering your ancestors are the application papers for the Daughters of
the American Revolution the DAR this lineage society admits women ages 18 and older who can
definitively prove with documentary evidence that they are directly genetically descended
from someone who either fought in the American Revolution or who was instrumental II involved in
helping the cause of independence during the war to apply a person must use documentary evidence
to prove every birth death and marriage in every generation from the applicant going back to the
Revolutionary ancestor they must also prove the connections between the generations one primary
source or two secondary sources for each event in the application counts as acceptable proof
once these documents are gathered and approved by the membership committee at the national level the
applicant is granted membership to a local chapter that sponsored them and their application becomes
part of the Daughters of the American Revolution library you can use these application papers to
research your own family whether you are using them to apply to DAR yourself or just to connect
some missing generations in your family tree the application papers are a terrific resource because
they provide information on many generations of each family and everything is thoroughly
documented for you you can go to the DAR library in Washington DC to research these papers for free
some genealogical departments at public libraries have bound copies of application papers but they
are usually organized by the year the applications were approved not by family name and they don't
have more up-to-date applications included in them they can still be good resources if you have the
patience to wade through them one of the best ways to use dar application papers to research your
family tree is to get a membership to ancestry.com this powerhouse genealogy research website has an
extensive collection of dar application papers and they are searchable by family name you can
use them to trace collateral branches of your family get dates and places for family members in
your direct line that you couldn't find anywhere else and even find names of spouses you couldn't
locate in any other place ancestry.com also has a large collection of Sons of the American
Revolution membership application just like dar but for men that you can use in the same way
whether you want to research in person in DC or at a local library or do it at home online this
is one lesser-known record source you want to make use of in your genealogy work whether you have a
direct revolutionary ancestor or not you can still find out a lot about your family in these records
the British College of Arms is a little use but highly important and rich resource for
genealogical information for people with British ancestors in the next
episode of the ancestral findings podcast I'll show you what they can
do for you to learn more about genealogy and sign up for our weekly giveaway visit
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