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Documenting the Line |
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Module III - Documenting
the Lineage |
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Module II "Finding a
Revolutionary War Patriot" discussed the steps
involved in identifying an ancestor in your lineage who
aided the Americans during the Revolutionary War
(1775-1783). Once you identify an ancestor, the next
step is to gather documents to prove the parent-child
relationships in each generation in the lineage.
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The First Three to
Four Generations |
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If your goal is to join the Daughters of the American
Revolution (DAR), you will likely need to gather many of the following documents for the first 3 or 4 generations in
your family:
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Your birth certificate OR baptismal certificate
(must list your parents)
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Your husband's birth certificate OR baptismal
certificate (if married)
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Your marriage certificate
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Your father's birth certificate OR baptismal
certificate
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Your mother's birth certificate OR baptismal
certificate
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Their death certificates (if either or both are
deceased)
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Their marriage certificate
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Your grandfather's birth certificate OR
baptismal certificate (if
obtainable)
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Your grandmother's birth certificate OR
baptismal certificate (if
obtainable)
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Their death certificates (if deceased)
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Deathindexes.com |
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If you do NOT know the exact date and/or location of
your ancestor's death, Deathindexes.com provides links to
many free and fee-based death indexes, obituaries, and
cemetery records. This site may help you to determine
a date and location of death, which in turn will make it
possible for you to order your ancestor's death certificate.
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DEATHINDEXES.COM |
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Vitalrec.com |
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If you know the date and location of birth, marriage, or death
for your ancestor, visit Vitalrec.com. This site offers information
on obtaining vital records and provides links to the state
and county resources responsible for issuing records. |
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VITALREC.COM |
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Beyond Generations
Three & Four |
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Federal census records are most often used to prove
parent-child relationships for ancestors living between 1850
and 1930. The 1850 census is the earliest census that
can be used to document a parent-child relationship for a
DAR or SAR application because it is the first census that
lists the names and ages of all of the people living
together in a household. The 6 federal censuses prior
to 1850 (i.e., 1790-1840) only list the head of household by
name.
Thus, usually the most difficult parent-child
relationships to prove are the ones that occurred before the
1850 census. Typically these are the three earliest
generations in the line from the patriot ancestor (i.e.,
linking the Revolutionary War patriot to his child and the
linking patriot's child to the patriot's grandchild).
For those interested in joining DAR or SAR, the easiest
way to get around this problem is to hope that someone else
has already submitted an application that proves the same
parent-child relationships for the earliest two or three
generations in the line. Module II of this tutorial
discusses how to search the online
DAR Patriot Index
to determine whether a previous DAR application has been
filed for your patriot through the same child and grandchild
as your lineage.
If you are a woman interested in joining DAR, get in
touch with your local DAR chapter as chapter members can
help you find and document your lineage to your patriot
ancestor. To contact a local
chapter, complete the online
Prospective Member Information Form or find a
chapter and contact them directly. For list of DAR
chapters in the United States and overseas,
click
here.
If you are a man interested in joining SAR, contact
your state's
SAR New
Member Helper or visit the website of your
State
Society
to find a
chapter in your area. |
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Family History
Library Catalog |
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If you descend through a DIFFERENT child and/or grandchild of
your Revolutionary War patriot than all previous DAR
applications (for men - DAR & SAR applications), you will
need to prove the parent-child relationships in these early
generations. The easiest way to do this is to order
microfilms of original records from your local Family
History Center. The Mormons have microfilmed original
records from courthouses, churches, and archives all over
the world. When proving parent-child relationships in
these early generations, the most important records to focus
on are vital records, probate records (wills),
deeds, and church records. You can order
microfilms containing these records for a nominal fee of
$5.50-$7.00 per film from your local Family History Center.
To locate a Family History
Center in your area,
click here.
To find microfilms, you will need to search the Family
History Library Catalog. The Family History Library Catalog
is organized by place. You MUST know the name of the
county (and sometimes the town) where your ancestors lived
and died. The
Town to County Database will tell you the county
where a town is located TODAY. However, county
boundaries frequently changed. When researching your
family, it is important to find out when a county was formed
and what county served as its parent county. For
example, Fort Lauderdale is located in Broward County, FL.
Broward County was formed in 1915 from Dade County and Palm
Beach County. A record for a marriage that took place
in Fort Lauderdale in 1911 would be located in Dade County
rather than Broward County.
Click here for
a demonstration on how to search for
microfilms in the Family History Library Catalog.
To
search for microfilms of vital records, probate records, deeds, etc. in
the Family History Library Catalog, first print out the instructions
at this link.
After printing the instructions, click the link below to
search the Family History Library Catalog. |
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FAMILY
HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG |
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Vital Records &
Probate Records |
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There are a large number of birth,
marriage, death, and probate records available for FREE
online. Click the link below for links to these
resources. |
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VITAL RECORDS & PROBATE
RECORDS |
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County and Town
Histories |
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From the late 1870s to the early
1920s, many counties (particularly in mid-western states)
published county histories which included detailed
biographies of their citizens. Many of these
histories are now available online for FREE.
In addition to your
direct ancestors, look for biographies for your ancestors'
brothers, uncles, nephews, etc. as their biographies will
often mention your direct ancestors. County histories can be very
helpful in documenting parent-child relationships for DAR
applications. In general, the DAR may accept a county
history as documentation of a parent-child relationship 1)
if the subject of the biography appears to have been the
informant (i.e., the subject was living at the time
the history was published), and 2)
you are using the county history to establish a parent-child
relationship that is no more than two generations removed
from the subject of the biography (i.e., subject's parents,
grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, children).
To determine the county in
which
a particular town is located,
click here.
NOTE:
Whenever you copy or download information from a county or
town history, be
sure to obtain the title page and publication information as
well. |
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COUNTY & TOWN HISTORIES |
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Bible Records |
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Before official recordkeeping of
births, deaths, and marriages became commonplace, many
families recorded these dates in their family Bibles.
Bible records can be important for documenting early
parent-child relationships. However, these records can be very
difficult to locate because 1) they are often lost or
damaged over the years or 2) they have been handed down to
one individual in the family and identifying the individual
with the family Bible can be very challenging.
Luckily, many of these records have been submitted to libraries and archives over
the past century, and some of these facilities are
digitizing the records and making them available online.
The index below is an ongoing project to identify pre-1830
Bible records that are available both online and offline.
When submitting a Bible
record as documentation for a DAR or SAR application, it is
important to submit the title page with the date of the
Bible's publication (if possible) along with the pages
listing the names and dates of your ancestors. |
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BIBLE RECORDS INDEX |
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Cemetery Records |
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Cemetery records often provide
valuable genealogical information. Volunteers at
Find A Grave
have photographed and/or transcribed millions of headstones
and markers throughout the world. To search for a
grave for a specific person,
click
here. To search for a cemetery,
click here. |
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Sampubco |
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In addition to the resources available
through the Family History
Library Catalog, Sampubco provides a free index to wills
for a large number of counties in the United
States. Currently, the most comprehensive indexes
at this site cover the counties in the State of New York.
However, indexes for counties in 29 other states
are also included. If
you locate a will for your ancestor, you can order a copy
for a fee. |
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SAMPUBCO |
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DAR GRC Index |
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For more than 100 years, DAR
members have been researching, transcribing, and compiling
thousands of "reports" containing vital records, cemetery
records, family Bibles, military records, court records,
obituaries, and probate records. Known as the DAR GRC
(Genealogical Records Committee) Reports, the entire
collection is housed at the DAR Library in Washington DC.
Over the past decade, DAR
members have been transcribing every name in the reports and
entering the names in the DAR GRC Index. A search of
the Index for your ancestor may reveal a family Bible record
or cemetery record that would not be readily available
anywhere else.
Click here for a
demonstration of the DAR GRC Index.
To search for your ancestors
in the DAR GRC Index, first print out the instructions
at this link.
After printing the instructions, click the link below to
search the DAR GRC Index. |
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DAR
GRC INDEX |
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If you locate one
or more GRC Reports about your ancestors, you may order up
to 10 pages of records from the DAR Library. The fee
for DAR members is $10.00. For nonmembers, the fee is
$15.00.
For information on ordering records,
click here and
scroll to "Photocopy Service" near the bottom of the page.
Be sure to provide the entire citation for the
record/records of interest. This would include the
name in the index, the state, series number, volume number
and page for the specific book in which that name appears.
You may order several different GRC citations
at the same time as long as the number of pages (including
the title page for each citation) does not exceed 10 pages.
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For more information about the
DAR GRC Index as well as other databases
available through the DAR Genealogical Research System,
click here. |
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Online Genealogy Books |
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In the last few years, thousands
of genealogy books have been digitized and are available
online for free. Three excellent resources for searching
digitized books are
Google Books,
BYU's Family History Archive,
and
Internet Archive.
Some family history and other
types of books can be used to document parent-child
relationships for DAR or SAR applications if they include
references regarding the sources of their information. To
determine whether a book might be accepted, show the
information to your chapter Registrar. NOTE:
Whenever you copy or download information from a book, be
sure to obtain the title page and publication information as
well. |
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War of 1812 Pension
Application Files |
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The pension and bounty land
warrant files for War of 1812 veterans and their widows are
in the process of being digitized. These records will
be available for FREE on
Fold3.
Currently, most of the files for soldiers with surnames
beginning with the
letter A are now
available online.
As these records are
digitized, a free index is being created to help locate
specific files of interest.
Click here to access the index. |
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Continue to Module
IV |
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Continue to the next module "Joining
the DAR." |
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