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Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
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SAR Patriot Index on CD-ROM |
| May 25, 1998 |
Progeny Publishing has released the SAR Patriot Index CD-ROM. "SAR" is a common abbreviation for the proper title of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Members of the Society are male descendants of individuals who helped the United States win independence during the Revolutionary War. Each applicant to the society must prove his descent from an identified Revolutionary War patriot. In some cases, the applicant may be the first person to identify a man or woman as a Revolutionary War patriot. Again documentation is required. In most cases the patriots are individuals who served as soldiers in the local militia or in the Continental Army or Navy. However, there were others who served in other capacities during the American Revolution, including public officials and even civilian spies. The SAR identifies all of these men and women who served the newly-emerging country as patriots.
I was going to write a description of the data on the CD-ROM, but I found that the SAR has already created an excellent text with all the information I would have written and more. I hope they don’t mind if I "cut-and-paste" it here:
With that background in mind, I inserted the CD-ROM disk into my computer and installed the software in a minute or so. All the needed software is included on the CD-ROM disk itself, you do not need any other program in order to use the SAR Patriot Index CD-ROM. The SAR Patriot Index runs on Progeny Software’s "Family Explorer" program, which I reviewed in the January 31, 1998 edition of this newsletter. That newsletter is still available at: http://www.ancestry.com/home/Dick_Eastman/eastfeb02-98.htm When I first started Family Explorer, it seemed a bit slow as the light on the CD-ROM drive flashed many times. However, once the program was loaded and operational, all the normal functions seemed to operate quickly. Simple searches took a very few seconds, and complex searches did take 30 seconds or longer to complete. I tested the CD-ROM on a 100-MHz Pentium system with 64 megabytes of memory running Windows NT 4.0. Simple searches are done by typing a surname and an (optional) first name or initial into menu boxes. I started out with a search on my own surname and quickly found almost too many to deal with. The simple search finds ALL occurrences of the surname, including the original patriot and all of his or her descendants listed in the SAR applications. The original patriots are shown with a pound sign (#) next to their names. A more sophisticated search mechanism is also available which I quickly learned to use. The detailed searches can be done on combinations of the person’s name, title, events, locations, dates and even the built-in notes. For example, if you know that the individual you want has a last name of Eastman, you can perform a simple search based on Surname = "Eastman". However, if you specify Person = Male, only the males with a surname of Eastman will be listed. If you further specify Event = Birth and Date After "1860", then only male Eastmans born after 1860 will be listed. The more information you specify, the shorter the match list, and the easier it will be to find the person you are seeking. Remember that most of the records are lineage-linked to other people. In most cases a few descendants of a Patriot are listed, and spouses also are often shown. There is no attempt to show ALL descendants. Remember that the information on this CD-ROM is derived from the applications of men joining the Sons of the American Revolution. Each application shows the applicant’s lineage back to the patriot and only that single line. There is no guarantee that all patriots from the Revolutionary War are included. Only those patriots with descendants who have joined the SAR and provided proof of descent are listed. When information is found on the CD-ROM, it can be displayed as a family group sheet, a pedigree chart or a descendant chart. All of the charts can be printed as well as displayed on the screen. Keep in mind that the title is the "SAR Patriot Index." It is an INDEX to other records. While the information presented on the CD-ROM is valuable by itself, every entry is a pointer to a record in a filing cabinet someplace. In order to use this valuable tool effectively, you need to look at the original record cited in the database. In recent years the Sons of the American Revolution has required proper source documentation along with all applications for membership. If someone else has already proven a line of descent from a particular ancestor, that proof may help you in your search for proof of your descent from the same ancestor. To order a copy of an SAR application, you simply print the appropriate order form by clicking on an icon. The blank form is printed on your printer. You then fill in the required information, put the form and a check or money order for $5.00 (US currency) into an envelope and mail it to the address shown on the form. I spent some time looking for some of my known ancestors within the database and received a pleasant surprise: One individual that I have listed in my database as "probably the son of…" was indeed listed as the son of the same person on two different applications for membership in the SAR. Apparently the SAR has received documentation of that connection which meets the SAR’s stringent requirements. I quickly printed out copy request forms and have now mailed them to SAR headquarters, and I expect to receive photocopies of the members’ applications within a couple of months. Hopefully those applications will provide the clues I need to satisfy myself of the connection between these two men. I was a bit surprised that the software does not automatically fill in the required information on the copy request form. The CD-ROM software only prints a blank form. Then you have to manually copy the required information as displayed on the screen or printed on your printer to the application form. Also, the instructions state, "Include the name of the child through which the line descends. Be sure and check the box indicating you will accept a line other than through this child." But on the application forms I printed, there was no such checkbox. I simply printed the complete family group sheet from the CD-ROM disk and enclosed it with the copy request form. I hope that provides sufficient reference information for the SAR to identify the application in question. All in all, I am delighted with this CD-ROM disk. Obviously I am happy that it found probable proof of an ancestor that previously I had only guessed at. (I have to say "probable proof:" until I receive the copy of the original application and then check its references.) But I am also pleased with the amount of data available and the ease of use. 470,000 records are on the CD-ROM disk, and I never needed to look at the tiny 13-page user’s’ manual. If you are researching Colonial period U.S. ancestors or believe that you may have Revolutionary War ancestry, this CD-ROM disk may prove to be one of the most valuable disks in your collection. It certainly will be a standard reference in my collection. The SAR Patriot Index CD-ROM runs on Windows 3.1, Windows 95 or Windows NT. There is no Macintosh version available. It requires 386 or better CPU, but I think I would recommend a 486 or better. It also requires at least 3 megabytes of hard drive space. The SAR Patriot Index CD-ROM is priced at $49.95 (U.S. funds) plus $5 shipping. For more information, look at: http://www.progeny2.com
- U.S. General Land Office Records Now Online I have been planning to write this story for several weeks. I delayed because of technical problems at the website. But it now seems to be working. Well, sort of….. The GLO (General Land Office) has been issuing state land records files on CD-ROM disks for several years. These disks have been valuable to many genealogists researching ancestors in the states where the government issued land grants. The disks sell for $19.00 and up. A few weeks ago the GLO announced that the Automated Records System (ARS) is now available online on the World Wide Web. The site contains records for the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. As soon as I read about the new site I checked it out. The opening screen had a disclaimer of "This Site is Under Construction. We are troubleshooting this system, so you may experience some problems." I’ll say they had problems;, I couldn’t get it to work at all! Sometimes it said "URL not found" but many times it gave errors that looked like database errors. I decided the site "wasn’t ready for prime time" so I never mentioned it here in the newsletter. This week I visited the site again and found that it worked perfectly for me. I visited it several times and did not see any errors at all. I don’t know if all the bugs have been stamped out or not, but the site certainly seems to be improved. Maybe now is time for me to mention this great new online database. Here’s the information as listed on the site:
Okay, so they said the five areas "are described below" and then they only described four areas. Maybe they haven’t got all the bugs out yet, or somebody at the General Land Office Web team cannot count. Nonetheless, there is a lot of good information available on this site -- and it is free! I selected a state at random and entered my own surname, and the database came back with many listings. Here is one of the listings selected at random (I had to "rearrange" the data a bit to fit in this newsletter);
The meanings of all those cryptic codes are explained on the HELP pages on the website. Now the best part of all:, you can download an image viewer, install it in your Web browser, and then go back and look at the actual images of the original land grants. The General Land Office will also send you a certified copy of a land grant certificate for $1.50. Keep in mind that the information is available "as is."The GLO is still debugging things, so if it doesn’t work for you, simply give up and then come back again a few days later to try the same search again. To look at land grant records from the eleven states mentioned earlier, point your Web browser to: http://www.glorecords.blm.gov
Wayne Fulton has created an online book called "A Few Scanning Tips." A few indeed, there’s a lot of tips here! I wandered around on this site for over an hour, and I bet I didn’t see half the material that is available here. In fact, Wayne has made the same information available in a book, which he also sells for $19.95. Usually you think that a free website is better than a $19.95 book, but I am not so sure this time. Having this information in printed form may be more useful to some people. The site is not oriented to genealogy although a lot of the information provided will apply to scanning old photographs and maps. Some of the topics covered include:
The above is an abbreviated list., there’s actually much more than that available on the website. To read "A Few Scanning Tips" look at: http://www.cyberramp.net/~fulton/scans.html My thanks to Roger R. Root roger_r_root@compuserve.com for the pointer to this site.
- American Immigrant Wall of Honor On The Web Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., the organization responsible for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, has a new presence on the World Wide Web. The new interactive site provides an online searchable database for The American Immigrant Wall of Honor, the Foundation's monument to America's immigrant heritage. The Wall of Honor lists the names of immigrants, but only if someone has paid $100 to have the inscription placed there. You can enter an ancestor's first and last name in the online search engine, and the database will determine whether a family is currently represented on the Wall. Over 500,000 names are currently inscribed, with registrations for a new phase of the Wall being accepted through June 1998. NBC's Today Show recently featured a segment on how to honor one’s grandparents via the site. The site was conceived and developed by Vanguard InterActive Inc., which was also responsible for the Foundation's flagship site at http://www.EllisIsland.org. I checked my surname on the website and found a number of entries for people of that name from England, Sweden, Norway and Lebanon. But the one that caught my eye was for Roger Eastman, the progenitor of most of the people of that name in North America. The listing says that Roger came from "Wales, England." That listing shows an abysmal ignorance of English and Welsh geography. Wales is not a section of England. Apparently this error is literally etched in stone at Ellis Island. If you want to check the "American Immigrant Wall of Honor" yourself, look at: http://www.WallofHonor.com/history
An attempt by a German mother to give her 10-month-old baby son 12 forenames was recently blocked by a court in Dusseldorf, Germany which ruled that a child could only have a maximum of five names. The 27-year-old housewife wanted to name the boy Chenekwahow Migiskau Nikapi-Hun-Nizeo Alessandro Majim Chayara Inti Ernesto Prithibi Kioma Pathar Henrike so that he would grow up "in the cultural spirit of the times." But the Duesseldorf court said that in choosing the names, the mother, whom it did not name, had not fulfilled her "Vornamenbestimmungspflicht" -- an obligation to make clear what people should call her child. This decision by the higher state court confirmed earlier rulings, but diverged on one point in accepting Kioma as a valid name. Two other courts had decided that the name, which the mother had invented, was illegal. If this happened in your family, would your present genealogy program handle an entry for someone named Chenekwahow Migiskau Nikapi-Hun-Nizeo Alessandro Majim Chayara Inti Ernesto Prithibi Kioma Pathar Henrike?
The following is a list of some of the genealogy-related World Wide Web home pages that have been listed recently on http://www.rootscomputing.com. Some of these sites may charge a fee for their services:
To submit your home page to this newsletter, enter the necessary information at: http://members.aol.com/casalongap. Due to the volume of new Web pages submitted, I am not able to list all of them in the newsletter.
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The SAR Patriot Index CD-ROM reportedly contains over 470,000 records of Revolutionary War patriots and their descendants. It is part of an ongoing project of the Sons of the American Revolution which, for the first time, makes public the genealogical information from thousands of Society membership applications from 1880 to the present. The information contained on the CD-ROM is presented as a lineage-linked database with many of the patriot ancestors linked to a number of his or her descendants.