Marco DAR Helps You Focus on Your Family Tree

Looking back, way back, was the subject of the most recent meeting of the Marco Island Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The guest speaker at the January 21, 2022 meeting at the Marco Island Yacht Club was Connie Lizak, Honorary Regent and Registrar of the Estero Island DAR chapter and part of the DAR task force to enable prospective members to trace their Revolutionary heritage.

Lizak cautioned that informal family genealogies are rarely acceptable if they are not sourced, but, “they can provide hints and signposts for further research.”

For example, those names on the front page of the family Bible or from a family’s historical notes or oral histories don’t qualify as documentation, but they may be a signpost in these helpful records and sources:

Helpful Records

• Vital Records: Births, marriages, deaths.

• Probate Records: Wills, administration.

• County and Town Histories: Biographical sketches.

• Bible Records: Births, marriages, deaths.

• Land Records: Transfer of land.

• Guardianships: Handling affairs of minors’ distributions, accounts.

• Military Records: Pension records.

• Church Records: Confirmations, baptisms, memberships, ex-communications, births, marriages and burials.

• Burial Records: Permits, plot ownership, vitals.

• Newspapers: Obituaries, life events, context.

• Census Records: In the US, every 10 years since 1790.

The DAR America 250! Membership Task Force helps members and chapters trace ancestors to Revolutionary War patriots and secure the required documentation for confirmation.

Marco’s DAR Regent, Ellen Camm, told members that “Connie’s presentation helps us recognize the effort that is involved in making the DAR databases the world-class resource that they are for millions of people. Our DAR registrars and volunteer genealogists are responsible for our having new members.”

Connie Lizak listed these online sites for those researching their family history.

• ancestry.com.

• familysearch.org.

• find-a-grave.

• deathindexes.com.

• learnwebskills.com/lineage.

• dar.org/members.

DAR members must prove direct lineal descent from an ancestor who helped secure American independence, including:

Ancestors Who Fought:

• Beginning with Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.

• Ending with evacuation of the last British forces from New York, November 26, 1783.

Other Types of Service:

• Signers of the Declaration of Independence.

• Military: Members of Local, State or Continental Military units.

• Civil: Served within local patriotic government - justice of the peace, surveyor, selectman.

• Patriotic: The broadest category - existing documentation to show they supported the war effort through word or deed. For example: paid supply tax, Oath of Allegiance, supplied beef or other goods.

Marco’s DAR wishes good luck to people hoping to discover more about their ancestors and information that may qualify them as a member of Daughters of the American Revolution or Sons of the Revolution (SAR).

DAR is a service organization with 180,000 members in three-thousand chapters worldwide. Members are women eighteen years or older, regardless of race, religion or ethnic background, who can prove lineal descent from a patriot in the American Revolution.

Monthly DAR meetings are at 10:30 AM on the third Thursday or Friday of each month, followed by lunch. Members also meet casually between meetings, just for friendship and fun. The chapter has 74 members and welcomes visitors from other chapters. Please contact Ellen Camm, ellencammg@gmail.com, 317-372-1174.