Category: Daughters

Lineage Society Miscellaneous

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Footprints: Two Brothers – One Family – The Whites

My White Family history in two volumes landed on my doorstep today. Wahoo! What a yeomen’s effort of Joyce Hughes and Marsha Pilger. Joyce worked on this history until her death and then the burden fell on Marsha. She has done a fine job and it looks great. I’ll be spending the weekend in Charlottesville, VA watching Sam’s American U. soccer game and reading my books.

I helped Joyce with my part of the family. She had a good start, however I have kept track of a lot of the White cousins through hosting a White Family reunion a number of years. I was able to locate descendants of Alexander Right and Mary Ella (Hess) White’s children. I found someone in each of the married children’s families. The children of Alex and Mary Ella include: Nettie (never married); Bess White Hosler (Gilbert); Sara White Myers (Melvin); Mary White Spencer (Howard); Grace White Hooker (James); William Walter White (my grandfather) (Effie); Charles A. White (Louise); and Earle White (Margaret). We are scattered to the four corners of the US and some of the great, great grands are living abroad.

I thought the Whites had not moved out of Pennsylvania until I was researching Thomas White as a Revolutionary War patriot for DAR. Alas, this is not true. William White who married Hannah Milliken moved West and died in Pana, Illinois. Last year, Al and I were traveling Route 30 west and stopped in Pana to find where they are buried. This story you can read in a previous blog posting. Anyway, if anyone is so inclined to travel there, let me know.

Thanks to Marsha Pilger for finishing Joyce’s work and publishing this wonderful history of our family.

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Christian Eby – Revolutionary War Patriot

My granddaughter, Kali Martin, approached me about joining the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. I was elated that one of the younger generation was interested in joining a group in which I am so involve. It didn’t take long for me to get started on her application. I started with the most interesting ancestor, John Slaymaker, that I knew was related. The Slaymaker home is still occupied and is known as White Chimneys, Lancaster County, PA.

The Slaymakers are well known in Lancaster County, so what could be so hard to prove this ancestor. Ah, but for some punctuation, it was not accepted. The only proof that I found connecting the dots to the correct line was an Orphan’s Court record that names all the children and grandchildren, but used no commas to delineate who belonged to whom. Instead of beating my head against the wall to find another document, I took the easy route and found another ancestor.

This time, I researched the Eby’s, another familiar name in Lancaster County. Plenty of Eby’s, so one of them had to provide service or pay taxes in support of the revolution. Without too much effort I was able to prove that Christian Eby was a Private in the Revolutionary War and is also eligible as a patriot for paying the Pennsylvania supply tax in 1779. It is also her grandfather’s middle name. Wahooo! Kali Martin, Junior Member NSDAR. I hope she gets as much out of being a part of the largest, wholly owned and operated by women organization, as I have. So many women who have God, Home and Country as their service motto. We have almost 200,000 members and hope to reach our goal of 250,000 members by the time the United States celebrates our 250th anniversary.


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PBS Genealogy Roadshow Filming in Philadelphia

This past weekend the NSDAR was exhibiting in Philadelphia at the PBS Genealogy Roadshow filming.  On Saturday we were at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and had representatives from Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Washington DC.  We answered questions from attendees about NSDAR, their ancestors, possible membership and a host of other genealogy questions.  We had Darryn Lickliter, Head of the Genealogy department of NSDAR to answer the really hard questions (most of those were from the ladies behind the table).

The Genealogy Roadshow was filming Joshua Taylor and Kenyatta Berry helping break down brick walls for those family genealogists who are stuck on one of their family lines.  The show is scheduled to air in January.

On Sunday, we were at The Franklin Institute exhibiting during the taping of the show.  We were kept busy with all the folks who came in off the street to see if they could get some help with their genealogy.  I was beat, when I left, from non-stop talking.  This is what our Volunteer Genies live for – talking genealogy non-stop.  We used our computers to do look ups on the DAR websites, Ancestry. com, FamilySearch.org, and Fold3.  I’m certain we have gained a few members for DAR and other Lineage Societies with all the look-ups.  Sunday we had DAR representatives from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, behind the table.  It was such a great experience for us all and  we have vowed to do this in our own areas to make more ladies aware of DAR and their eligibility to join.

We were excited to see one of our own being taped for the show and hope she doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor.  If you go on the PSSDAR Facebook page, you can see us in all our glory.  Another of our members was an extra for filming on Saturday.

A big thank you to all the ladies for coming to my rescue to help and for taking so much of their time to be in Philadelphia this weekend.

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Revolutionary War Patriot Homes

I’ve blogged about this before, but just have to say — I keep getting more patriot homes in PA every week.  I try to record all the homes by county and do further research to be sure that the home is one that was built and/or lived in by a patriot.

I will be speaking to the Regents’ Club of Central Pennsylvania soon about the homes in this region and to promote the Harrisburg Chapter book “Revolutionary War Patriot Historic Houses in Dauphin County Pennsylvania”.  It is such a beautiful book and well worth the price, especially if you are interested in local history.  The ladies did a wonderful job of identifying and documenting 60 homes in their book.

I started collecting homes from other counties while I was the NSDAR State Chairman for Historic Preservation.  I have located, with the help of daughters around Pennsylvania, 41 additional homes.  If you find any that you would like to preserve with the NSDAR, feel free to email me at my website with information about where the home is located and who is the patriot associated with the home, I will do the rest of the work.  A photo of the property would be appreciated.

Happy Hunting

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Winding Down My Term and Moving On

Well, the three years as South Central District Director for the Pennsylvania State Society, DAR is winding down.  I’ve had a busy 3 years, but very rewarding.  I have visited each of the DAR Chapters in the South Central and joined in on many other celebrations.  It is so much fun and you get to meet the most interesting people.

I will now be concentrating more on Lineage Society applications.  I’m taking on the Sons of the American Colonists.  I guess I should try doing my papers for Daughters of the American Colonists.  It is one more way to document my ancestors and their struggles to start in a new world.  I also will be working on those few elusive ancestors who moved from the New England states to Pennsylvania.  Joel Packard where are your parents?

I’ve submitted another ancestor for Daughters of the Union Veterans of  Civil War.  Great grandfather, Joseph S. Shoemaker, certainly lead an interesting life.  He and great grandfather John Wesley Duart fought in the same 7th PA Cavalry.  As I’m learning more about both of them, I hope to write an article to let others know just how brave they were to go to war.

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James Doty Book At the Printers

I didn’t make the Christmas deadline I had set for myself, but did make it to the printers December 28th. The book will be available through my website in the new year. With the index of more than 3000 names, the book will be at least 120 pages, in hardback, with a few pictures. I’m so excited that it is finally done, but I know there was so much more to add. I think I’ll continue to collect obituaries, death certificates, grave photos, and family histories to add to a supplement of this book. So if you have any Shoemaker, Packard, Duart, Brown, More, Morse, etc., information please consider sharing that with me.

The Harrisburg Chapter, NSDAR book “Revolutionary War Patriots’ Historic Houses of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania” has been a hit. I continue to collect patriot homes throughout Pennsylvania for a possible follow-up book. The Historic Preservation Committee of Harrisburg has at least 60-80 more homes that could make up a second book. The research that is necessary for such a book will slow down our next publication date, but standby for more.

I have been invited to a number of local NSDAR chapters and historical societies to talk about the Revolutionary War homes in PA and always get a lead on yet another home. It amazes me that so many of these homes remain and occupied. By bringing these homes to public attention, it is our intent to keep them for many generations to come, to enjoy.

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Challenging DAR Applications

I’ve been working on a couple of challenging NSDAR applications this month and have found how many times people on the internet perpetuate incorrect data. One thing that the NSDAR genealogy course teaches is that if they were born in KY, then their parents had to be in KY at some point, preferrably when their child was born. If you don’t find them there, then you probably have the wrong person. Also, being born in PA and you find a person with that name on the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum commission’s list of soldiers in Pennsylvania, that this is your ancestor. You need to keep looking, READING, and do the math. If you have a picture of a tombstone from Findagrave and the date of death on the stone says 1833, then he couldn’t possibly be writing letters in 1883. This isn’t rocket science folks, just simple math– 1883 comes after 1833.

NSDAR will tease all of this out of the documents you provide. As an applicant, you can do this too, you just need to reason it out as to time and place. If you put down a date or place, do you have a document to prove it? I liken it to being an agent on NCIS or CSI. You don’t have the blood and guts, but need the reasoning power.

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PSSDAR South Central District

August 27th the South Central District of PSSDAR held a High Tea to support our State Regent’s Project for the DAR Schools.  What a huge success.  We had 11 beautiful baskets and a Treasure Chest to distribute.  Our daughters are very generous and we raised almost $1000 towards the Regent’s Project.

High Tea can be a lot of fun, especially when we get out our hats and gloves.  We had daughters from around the mid-state area from as far north as Lewisburg – Shikelimo Chapter, Scranton- Scranton City Chapter, and the State Regent from Washington, PA.

If anyone is interested in joining the DAR, you can get help by emailing me at the contact section of my website.

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A Week of DAR

This week started with Regents’ Club of Central Pennsylvania where new officers were elected.  President, Joan Romig;   V. President, Mary Duggan; Recording Secretary, Suzanne Seebold; Corresponding Secretary, Deborah White Hershey; Treasurer, Phoebe Conner; Chaplain, Lorraine Prutzman.

It was on to Harrisburg Chapter, DAR Flag Day luncheon with SAR.  We had an excellent attendance with numerous prospective, pending  and verified members.  The support the Chapter has garnered continues to grow as others see the many projects we have to honor our veterans, including Wreaths Across America; toiletries to Lebanon VA hospital; Bingo with the veterans at Lebanon; and clothing and other items sent to Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany.

Finally a trip to Rocky Springs Presbyterian Church in Chambersburg to the Franklin County Chapter, DAR memorial service and annual church service. The church is owned and maintained by this chapter.  It was a very warm day, but well attended services.