The Villages Daily Sun

Prospective DAR members learn how to search lineage

By DONNA RILEY-LEIN / DAILY SUN

LADY LAKE — Knowing who you are is difficult. But finding out and proving who your ancestors were nine generations or so ago can be something else.

Prospective members of the Puc Puggy chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution got some help with proving their eligibility for membership last Saturday at the Lady Lake Public Library. All members of the DAR must be able to prove their descent from at least one person who supported the American cause during the Revolutionary War. Members were on hand to help in tracing the families of women thinking about joining the group.

“Your ancestor didn’t have to have fought. They might have provided supplies, or signed a loyalty oath,” said Beverly Schonewolf, the chapter’s lineage research chairman, and a Country Club Hills resident. She added that a prospective member may also claim descent from a female patriot.

“We’re not stuffy,” smiled Schonewolf, dispelling one of the myths about the DAR. “We’re not exclusive. That’s the way lineage works.”

The DAR is involved in a number of activities, ranging from education to the preservation of historic buildings and documents to providing assistance to veterans. DAR is open to all women who can prove descent from a Revolutionary War patriot, regardless of national origin, race or religion.

“We support local VA clinics, and we send cards to injured troops in Landstuhl (Regional Medical Center) in Germany,” Schonewolf said. “We’ve donated books to the new Sumter County Library.”

One of the projects close to Schonewolf’s heart is the DAR’s efforts to collect, catalog and index unpublished documents, such as family Bibles, private journals and privately published genealogies.

“There is a massive amount of information in those documents, and it is scattered all over the country,” said Schonewolf, who donated her grandfather’s 1848 journal to the DAR. “Now with the indexing, all these documents will be available to anyone.”

For MaryLou Trego, a Tierra Grande resident, the DAR has been a part of her life since her late 20s.

“I was always interested in history and genealogy,” Trego said. I had a great high school history teacher who really turned me on to history. I got so involved, traveling to historic cemeteries and sites, my kids would say, ‘Hold Mom’s eyes, we’re passing a cemetery.’ ”

Joan Hutter joined about a year ago. “I knew that I was DAR-eligible,” the Village of Woodberry West resident said.

“I could find a lot of stuff online, but I wound up visiting the Fairfax County, Va., courthouse to get the documents I needed. It’s been great realizing that other women have the same ideologies that you do. We enjoy each other.”

To start a search, start with your parents and grandparents, Schonewolf advised.

“After your grandparents, it starts getting tricky,” Schonewolf said. Family sleuths have to get creative and search church, census and perhaps old newspapers to find out when ancestors were born, married and died.

“Think like a third-grader,” Schonewolf said. “Look for spelling variations in names. If you can’t find your ancestors, try spelling their last name the way a third-grader would.”

Schonewolf added that the Lady Lake and Sumter County libraries have subscriptions to Ancestry.com and Heritagequest.com, two well-known subscription genealogical search sites for their patrons to use.

“DAR also has volunteers who can assist with searches,” Schonewolf said. “It blows you away when you realize how many women will look things up for you.”

In case you are wondering, The Puc Puggy chapter gets its name from the Seminole name for William Bartram, a Quaker botanist who sketched the plants and animals of central Florida in 1776. The term means “flower hunter.”

Donna Riley-Lein is a reporter for the Daily Sun. She can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9255, or donna.riley-lein@the

villagesmedia.com.