Discover Your Family’s Connection to America’s Founding
More than half of Americans are believed to have at least one ancestor who lived in Colonial America before the Revolution. A qualifying Revolutionary War patriot for the SAR need not necessarily have been a soldier. SAR Patriots may include those who:
• Served in the military
• Signed loyalty oaths
• Served in local government
• Supplied food, goods, or services
• Supported the cause of independence in their communities
In short, you may be connected to a Patriot who helped create the United States.
Follow Your Hunch
Step 1: Start with yourself and search backward. Use full names. Look for copies of certificates of birth, marriage, and death of yourself and your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Step 2: Validate with records. Collect US and states censuses, copy entries in family bibles, compile obituaries, cemetery records, funeral cards, search the DAR and Find-A-Grave databases, and so forth.
Step 3: Build a family tree. Use a genealogy website to organize individuals by generation. Two fairly reliable sites are FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com
Step 4: Go to “Interested in Becoming a Member” on https://www.sar.org and follow the steps indicated.
Whether your ancestors fought in the War, supplied food and materials, served in local government, or supported the cause of independence in other ways, you may have a fascinating story waiting to be discovered!
If you are interested feel free to Contact Us at President@CharlotteSAR.org to learn how you can become part of preserving America’s legacy.