Daughters of Revolution

or ..."Cheez-Whiz Redundancies and the Gee-whizzes of Genealogy" 

Above: Grant Wood's "Daughters of Revolution," 1932

(Author's note: Sometimes when it comes to genealogy, all we can do is to "keep on keepin' on.)

As always, loosely edited.

Hey, I'm a geek. (Guess you already knew that.) But the truth is, I love lineage societies. Nobody documents or houses 98% proven ancestral lines better than these folks. While their repositories don't always have "everything" on, say, somebody's line to Henry Batt of Jamestown and beyond, they do hold a lot of the keys, as they say, to the proverbial genealogical kingdom.

Nah, the trouble for me isn't the lineage society or the wonderful and well-laid-out proofs of ancestry contained therein. Nah, it's the frickn' overkill. Specifically, it's the overkill in the application process. It's the "We'll need some extra Cheez-Whiz verifications, i.e., vital records, on top of that application you just sent in if you expect us to approve it—or for us to even consider it." Yeah, that's when they suck.

Gee-whiz.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. "We must always maintain the proof standard." Yes, I know, all hail the mighty "Proof Standard." Seriously, though, consider this scenario:

Recently, I have been helping a friend put together her application to the Daughters of the American Revolution. Now I know for a fact that the DAR is going to require birth, death, and marriage certificates when legally available for at least the first three generations. Yes, I know, I know, "...maintain the proof standard," "prove one and the same...."

"Blah, blah, blah..."

   

But what to do when the young woman applicant is legitimately estranged from her still-living father? She cannot legally request a copy of his birth certificate. Going further, I've applied to the state for other vital records on her behalf (a state that appears to imprison its vital records at Andersonville), but have been told that there is no such thing as an informational copy, that even under the auspices of applying for one under the designation of " for genealogical use only" a death certificate from forty-five years ago it is verboten. Then, even after asking her to apply herself (so that her own daughter might avoid the issue later on), and rather than me apply for that same record, she was told that, as a "great-great-granddaughter," she would not be permitted to have said vital record. (If she were naught but a "great" granddaughter, she might have been able to receive it.)

Too far removed as a direct line descendant? Gee-whiz, right?  

Yes, I know, genealogically speaking, we've all been there battling the red tape or the Vital Records department - a department that's a first cousin not-so-far removed to the DMV. 

Honestly, what do they think we do with this stuff?

So, rebuffed by all of this "ineligibility" to receive vital records, I (we...) return to that lineage society application. Lord knows, we've been down this path before, where if you don't have grandma's birth certificate, you could risk being, as the Quakers say, "dis mou" ("disowned"). There really isn't much to be done now, is there?

Yeah, well, that's where I disagree.

Consider this article in the newspaper:           

Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Friday, September 23, 1966

It successfully links the bride to her parents and the groom to his. It pretty much spells it all out. So, in light of this newspaper clipping, if the applicant has a birth record of her own (and even if she doesn't), why exactly do we need a marriage certificate for her parents? For legitimacy? Seriously? I'm pretty sure the applicant knows who her parents are.

The marriage is then, even when referred to in the past tense with "vows exchanged," is considered only "hearsay."

Right.

Have you ever paid for a "hearsay wedding" and put the notice in the newspaper about it with all its "hearsay" participants, and then had a couple of grandkids a few years later?

Yeah, I thought not (too).

Next, consider her father. Remember, she (the applicant) has been estranged from him for many years and cannot legally obtain a birth certificate as he is still living. "Enter into evidence" the obituary of his father and mother, the DAR applicant's grandparents. This obituary names the surviving spouse and children, with one of those children being the father of the applicant herself. Combine these with some gravesite photos to verify dates, and we have a pretty near-perfect chain of events for three generations—and we haven't darkened the doorway of the folks at vital records one bit.

                 

            Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Tuesday, August 18, 1998, 

Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Monday, July 10, 1989

            

                                          

     And yes, I see the discrepancy in the place of birth between the draft card and the census record.              

                          

I can hear an archivist at the DAR calling out the Minute Men to flag me down as a genealogical heretic.

Oh, and remember her daughter's great-great-grandmother, they were so not going to release any vitals on? Check out the information in Granny and Grandpa's obits:

               

Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Saturday, November 26, 1966

Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Tuesday, July 3, 1979

Citing too much in the way of other sources here seems pretty unnecessary. It may not work for the lineage society application, but the obits take us right back to the name of the applicant's great-great-grandparents.

Above: The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Friday, February 14, 1936    

              

 

And even further, naming his parents above and below:

   

Okay, yes, I have cheated here with the above image. I have used a recently verified DAR application to prove the connection between James Brown and his son William. Don't be too alarmed. It's what the DAR does all the time to connect generations. Looks like if they do it, it's not hearsay. LOL.

I don't know about you, but it seems to me this lineage society application is really a fait accompli. This is a straight line down from a Brown to a Brown. It shouldn't be a big deal for the mavens at DAR to simply check the boxes? Just saying...

I know. They do seem a bit unforgiving on the Cheez.

And yes, I know that we still haven't verified a date of birth for the applicant's living father. We may have to approximate that via city directories and/or census records, but make no mistake, the line holds. It would be hard to say that we have not met the proof standard outside of not being able to use one "official" document. And yes, I know I need the vitals on her mother (not my first rodeo) but seriously? Cheez-whiz or what?

I guess my point on all of this is that lineage societies have a "Cheese-whiz" mentality when it comes to official documents. The official documents can often prove even less than the secondary ones when official information is filled out incorrectly or marked as unknown. I personally think that the extra cheese of always requiring vital records is overkill when it comes to proving a line. 

If the line can be otherwise proven, anything else is, frankly, a waste of good cheese, and, yes, Gee-whiz, a lot of whine.

Peace out. 

🏳