[LI SNOWBIRD]

Originally Posted by Carl in Tampa

I joined the SAR in the mid-1970s while living in New Orleans but have not kept my membership up through the years. The local chapter in New Orleans was not very active and after I moved from there I simply lost interest and did not get in touch with other local chapters. I haven't paid dues in years and so in all likelihood I am no longer on their rolls.

I doubt that my enrollment experience will be of much help to you. My ancestor who served was a member of the Berks County (Pennsylvania) Militia and his service was recorded in a document in the Berks County Courthouse. I was able to write to the holder of the records and obtain a certified copy. That satisfied the first requirement for membership: proving the service of the person.

I was very fortunate regarding the second element: demonstrating my relationship to the individual. In the early 1900s, a relative of mine in Ohio suffered a heart attack that forced him to retire from regular employment. Still able to travel, and with an active mind, he began traveling to the homes of people with our surname and copying genealogical information from their family Bibles.

He was able to establish an extensive family tree of relationships which reached back not only to the arrival of our ancestors in this country through the Port of Philadelphia, but also could demonstrate the family dispersion along the southern border of Pennsylvania (which includes Berks County) and into Virginia (and later, W. VA.) and up into Ohio.

As he developed this information he provided it to a relative in Ohio who was a publisher who published confirmed genealogical information regarding several families in a monthly publication. He also condensed the information on individual families into books regarding specific families.

My father had, and passed on to me, several of the monthly publications and one of the books of our specific linage extending back to the arrival of our family in this country. The SAR accepted these publications as proof of my relationship to the serving member in the Revolutionary War.

If you can document the service of your ancestor and your linage from that ancestor, I don't know what the problem would be. I guess it is primarily a question of what the SAR will accept in demonstrating those facts.

What about the process do you find daunting?

I have just started looking into it The paperwork including proof of relationship seems alot. I heard that SAR can assign you a member to help if necessary.. Is that true?