Just met with the vice-president of the Marquis de Lafayette chapter of Sons of the American Revolution to sign my application for membership.

As it happens, five years ago a cousin in Colorado was admitted to Daughters of the American Revolution on a claim of descent from the same ancestor, who signed “William McGehie” on a document known as the “Albemarle Declaration” in 1779. Other signers of this document include Thomas Jefferson, who was one of William’s neighbors. Anyway, my latest common ancestor with this DAR applicant is my great great great grandfather, who is William McGehie’s grandson, so apparently that link was proven to DAR’s satisfaction and will presumably also satisfy SAR.

Years ago I traded correspondence with a cousin (actually my dad’s cousin, who knew him when he was a toddler) who had been trying to satisfy DAR of that line of descent and hadn’t been able to quite prove it. I think she managed to get in on the basis of another ancestor though.

Chris and her mother are both DARs with multiple qualifying ancestors, so you just know there will be efforts to add to my collection. I doubt I would have been as happy about getting in though, if the ancestor in question weren’t a McGehee.

I still haven’t done a damn thing about Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Maybe that’s because I live in Georgia, though I don’t think that ancestor—William McGehie’s great grandson—had anything to do with Gen. Sherman.

Thing is, I don’t think there are any SUVCW chapters around here…

Updated:   Mon   8 Dec 2008   23:20

I was wrong, there are chapters in Georgia after all. I’ve sent an inquiry to someone who’s listed as being in Peachtree City. We’ll see.

Updated:   Sat   20 Dec 2008   22:37

Just took inventory and I now have a total of 29 additional potential revolutionary ancestors—based on birth and death dates in the (quite possibly inaccurate) information I’ve compiled via Ancestry.com.

These include not only five-times-great grandparents like William McGehie, but also six- and seven-times great grandparents, going back to one born in 1688, as well as a handful of four-times-great grandparents (though one of those was born in 1772).

Admittedly, toddlers and octogenarians are unlikely prospects, and at least some of these may not even have been in the New World until after the Treaty of Paris ended the war. But for now let’s just say these are “persons of interest.” And there are certainly more that I don’t yet have dates for—or even names.

I can begin to see how it is that one storied SAR member can have “over a hundred” qualifying ancestors. You get enough generations involved and anything’s possible.
 

 AP Passes Along Marching Orders
 Posted:   Mon   8 Dec 2008   12:10 pm   "0!"

Idle hands dig up a mystery.

Don’t Hitchhike
Updated Tue 16 Dec 2008 4:54 pm   "6!"