Please excuse any punctuation and grammatical errors. I have a degree in Business Management with a minor in Computer Programming.
In other words, I can't spell and if spell check doesn't work, I'm toast!
I started asking questions about my ancestors when I was
about 18 years old. My Uncle Jack Holt died
and all the family was gathered around.
I believe it was the first time I “remember” meeting my Great Uncle Clarence. Clarence was my Grandmother
Holt’s brother. I was like a sponge asking and asking questions. Uncle Clarence told me he could introduce me to a
lady, Bonnie Ball Sage, and she could help me get into the DAR. Now,
you all know how old I am, so I’m not going to talk about how long ago that
was. Needless to say it was a long, long
time ago. Here was the problem, I lived
in Maryland, Clarence lived in Danville, VA and Bonnie Ball Sage lived in Grayson
Co, VA. Who the heck ever heard of
Grayson County. I didn’t even know
where it was.
I took all of the info that I gleamed and put it in a
binder. I ordered info on how to search
for your family and creating your family tree.
I was so excited to finally get started on my ancestry….Remember I’m
18. I wanted to join the DAR and be a
debutant. So I happily filled in the
charts with all the info that I had gathered….and……nothing, I did nothing with
it. Now to my credit, I did try, but it
was hard to research your family back then…wow that sounds like I should be
talking about the 1800’s or something.
There was no internet! My family
didn’t have all of the wonderful bibles, documents, letters, pictures,
etc. All we had were memories and
stores. You had to research in the
libraries and courthouses to get information, but those were in Danville,
Pittsylvania, Grayson,, Wythe, Smyth, Halifax, Henry, Charlotte, Campbell,
Montgomery and Washington County in
Virginia and Caswell , Rockingham, Ashe
Counties in North Carolina…just to name a few.
I LIVE IN MARYLAND!!
While Mrs. Sage would have been willing to help me, she
didn’t live near me so everything had to be conducted by letter. Whew…when was the last time you wrote a
“Letter” not email or text, but an actual “letter” and sent it by mail. Heck today, we send out an email and expect
an instant response. I didn’t have my
Great Uncle Clarence to help encourage me and no one on either side of my family
seemed remotely interested, I eventually lost interest. I asked one of my aunts about the family and
she told me to “leave the skeletons in the closet”. NO way, I want to know about the skeletons,
that’s the best part, and believe me I’ve uncovered a few on both sides of my
family and I plan on telling you about them.
Don’t worry, if I find a skeleton about YOU, I won’t publish it, but
just to let you know, I’ve found a few of those too. If there is a court record or newspaper article, I can find it but I won’t publish it. It’s only fair; I might have a few of those
skeletons too that my descendants might eventually find. It’s only fair! Descendants, that’s heavy. I usually think in terms of ancestors, but I
have descendants too. Wow!
So years so by, I’ve grown up, gotten married, had children,
divorced, and watched my daughters grow to be beautiful teenagers. When Miranda was in 11th great she
came home and told me she needed to create a family history chart with 4
generations for her 20th Century History Class. Four generations, she only needed four generations! That’s easy right; I had already done all of
that work and more back when I was younger.
So all I needed to do was pull out the trusty binder and she was all
set. Except there was no trusty binder;
I even remember throwing it away. But I apparently have a really good memory
for this stuff, so I recreated it. Yea
to me, Right? But here is the good
part. The teacher told the class ( and
later told the parents) that she fully expected the parents to do this part of
the project. She was ok with that and
let them go with it. She had a secret…..
ANCESTRY.COM …… Need I say more. It’s free for 14 days!. HALLALEUAH! Fourteen days later, and having had almost
no sleep, I was deep into my family tree and having a blast. I researched and researched…well I copied
and copied and copied other people’s information. It was all about getting the next name and so
forth. That’s what I did and I’m proud
to say that when Miranda turned in her project, she had about 16 generations of
family. On my gosh!
On my gosh is right; about 16 generations of information
with no PROOFS to back them up. Just
someone put down that so and so was the parent of so and so and so forth. This is 2007. I still want to join the DAR. I bravely gather the information and contact
a local DAR chapter. I go to a meeting,
but….. Now this was a nice DAR chapter,
but I didn’t feel comfortable there. It was
a small chapter and everyone knew each other and apparently had been together
for a while. I was clueless. The registrar gave me paper copies of the
forms that the DAR uses and told me to fill in everything and gather all the
proof (WHAT PROOF!) and turn it in and she would review it and let me know what
else was needed. That’s it. With no idea of how to really find what I
needed…I just let it slide.
I continued to gather the information needed for the
DAR. I got lucky one day when I stumbled
upon Roots Web and I posted and posted and posted questions. One day, a wonderful man contacted me and
told me he was my Dad’s cousin and he was going to send me enough information
to help me with my DAR application. A
few weeks later I received this large package with an amazing amount of
information. There were census, wills,
Revolutionary War Pension applications, Confederate Prisoner of War
papers. Ancestry numbers for multiple
Historical Societies that I could join and the person I could join under. I could join the DAR, UDC, Colonial Dames 17th,
Jamestown Society, Carter Society, etc.
The list went on and on. I was
really impressed. One, that my family had been here long enough so that I would
be eligible to join these societies, and two that someone had actually researched and
found documents that would allow them to join these societies.
At this point, I’m still trying to find a birth and death certificate for
my grandparents so that I can join the DAR and people have found documentation
that says that are of lineal descent to someone that was here when Jamestown
was JAMESTOWN. Amazing.
Now I figured that before I could go to the DAR meetings I
had to turn in my DAR application; that is NOT TRUE. So if you are interested in joining go to a
meeting. In 2011, I contacted the DAR
and asked them to help find me a DAR chapter.
I wanted one that met on Saturdays.
The next day I got an email from the Regent ( Nancy) of the Providence Chapter located in Fairfax and she started asking me questions. I sent her a complete list of my ancestry
all the way to my chosen Revolutionary Patriot, James Sage and guess what, she
sent me back a completed DAR application.
I just had to fill in some of the dates. I worked and worked and worked. I checked the DAR website to see how the
document was supposed to be filled in and on January 1, 2012, I took it along
with all my proofs and went to a Genealogy session at the Fairfax library
Virginia room. Whew! It was looked over and deemed ready to be
submitted. I gave them all the
paperwork and waited for them to bring me an official application to be
signed. All applications have to be
printed on 25% rag count legal paper. It
holds up better through the years. I
didn’t attend a DAR meeting until January 2012. I could have been enjoying the meetings and
getting to know the ladies. I signed my
official application in March and then waited and waited and waited. No I didn’t wait that long. It usually takes about 8 weeks for an
application to be approved. Mine was
verified by the genealogists (Geni’s) and approved by the DAR Executive Board
on June 25, 2012. I was finally a
member.
(Miranda and Amber, I still need a frame for this)
(Cathy - Chapter New Member Ceremony)
So it’s been 4 years since I’ve joined. At the end of my first year, I was asked to
run for office of Recording Secretary. I've marched with the DAR in the National 4th of July Parade with several other ladies of my chapter and met the new President General.
(2013 4th of July Parade in DC )
Two years later, I was asked to consider running for office of First Vice
Regent. So here I am, finishing up my
term as the Vice Regent. It’s been fun
and I’ve enjoyed it. My job is to find speakers for our meetings. There have been highs and
lows in the planning and implementation process, but the chapter ladies have
been wonderful throughout it all.
I've attended Continental Congress for two years as a Delegate
.
(2015 - Patti, Janet and myself - opening night)
I worked on the Book Sync project and synced over 2300 pages to earn the Book Worm Pin.
Last year, 2016, I had the pleasure of
being asked to work on the Registration Line Committee at the DAR Continental
Congress (CC). That is the national conference
which is held in DC in June of each year.
There is a lot of standing on this committee, my feet, ankles, knees,
hips and back ached for days, but there was always a smile on my face to greet
the ladies at the conference. I made
some new friends and learned more about the DAR in one week than I had the entire 4 years.
(2016 - Registration Line Committee - after standing up all day making sure everyone gets thru the voting process - we are standing on top of the portico where the 13 columns are that represent the 13 Colonies)
I've been part of a Guinness World Book title in patriotism for “most letters to military personnel collected in one month.”
We collected over 109,700 letters.
(Photo courtesy of DAR.org)
I've had the pleasure to work alongside a wonderful group of ladies both in the Providence Chapter and at Continental Congress. They are truly a blessing to know. I have enjoyed every moment of being a member and hope that others have had the same wonderful experiences.
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This June I
will celebrate my 5th year anniversary as a member of the DAR; so
what’s next? I don't know. I’m hoping to be re-elected as Vice Regent
for another two years and I hope to be asked back again this year to the Registration Line at CC? I'll keep working on the Genealogy Preservation Committee to eventually index over 12,000 pieces of DAR application Supporting Documentation for the DAR Genealogists. Other than
that, I’ll keep researching.
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Nice summary!
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