My DAR Application is Accepted!

A journey I began two years ago is finally complete!  I received word this morning that my DAR application has been accepted!

After several starts and stops over the past two years I finally submitted my application (with lots of help from the local DAR Regent) about one month ago.  I needed to prove my lineage all the way back to my Revolutionary War ancestor (I couldn't just "tie in" to another application already approved) and while you would think the difficult part would be my early ancestors, that did not turn out to be the case.

My DAR brick wall happened to be my Great Grandfather, Pearl Stephens.

His parents did not marry until Pearl was about 19 years old.  Until then Pearl went by his mother's maiden name of Botkin.  There is no birth record for Pearl that may have listed his father.  In the census records he was listed as Pearl Botkin (not Stephens) and the obituary for his father did not list children. The only thing I did manage to locate was a small newspaper article stating that Pearl was in town for the funeral.  But even that didn't state he was the son.

There should be a record of Pearl's mother filing "Bastardly" charges against his father but locating those early records have been a challenge.

In the end the historical society in the town had a piece of paper stating that Pearl's father died Intestate and the heirs were his wife and his son Pearl Stephens.  That is the evidence I submitted to the DAR and thankfully it was accepted.

I'm grateful and so excited to cross this off my bucket list.  But I must admit.......I'd still love to locate those charges......I'm not ready to give up yet!

Follow Friday - DAR Website

For more than a year I have been diligently working on my DAR application.  Both my 3rd great-grandfather, Thomas Botkin and my 4th great-grandfather, Hugh Botkin, served in the Revolutionary War and I have been trying to pull together all the documentation I need to prove my lineage.

While I've had help from the wonderful people of the William Tuffs Chapter of the DAR here in Indiana, one of the best sources of information for me has been the applications on file with the DAR that have already proven lineage of my ancestors.

You can find these on the DAR site.  Just follow this link and click on the Ancestor Tab.  Here you can search by the surname of your ancestors to see if perhaps lineage has already been proven!  If you find an application on file you can order it for $10.00 and download it immediately!

You can use this information in two ways:

1.  If an ancestor down the line has already been proven you will only need to prove your link to that person.  In my case both Thomas and Hugh have been proven but I need to prove my link to my 2nd great-grandfather Isaac and his link to his father Thomas.

2.  I've been able to use the information in these applications to track down the original sources they used.  One of the applications that I ordered had proven the link of Isaac's brothers to his father Thomas.  I can obtain and use this same source and use it as proof of Isaac's parentage.

If you suspect you may have a Revolutionary Soldier in your family be sure and use the search feature on the Ancestor Tab.  You never know what you may find!