Thursday, June 30, 2011

Do you want to join the DAR or SAR?

The DAR - Daughters of the American Revolution, and SAR - Sons of the American Revolution, are both ancestry-based organizations. Membership requires that you prove descendancy from a participant in the Revolution. The DUP - Daughters of the Utah Pioneers is also such an organization.
To all my children: If you want to join any of these organizations you CAN.
My bro. Jim sent out an email some time ago with information on John Kennedy Jr. who was captured by the British and confined in a prisoner ship. People in those days were pretty casual about caring for prisoners, and Jn. died of starvation in 1781, a common fate.
So, I have verified that this is indeed our ancestor, the father of Josiah Ashurst's wife, Rebecca Kennedy. This image is one of three images containing an application for membership in SAR based on descendancy from Jn. Kennedy Jr. It was approved and can thus be used as the basis for further applications. You just have to prove your descendancy from Jn K. and you will be IN. I can help with that. The important thing is that the document lists the source of the short narrative about his service.

"John Kennedy was a soldier of Virginia in the War of the American Revolution and was at the Battle of Guilford Court House, North Carolina, where he was taken a prisoner and he died aboard a British Prison Ship of Starvation."

It also states that his wife was Esther Stilly ( my records show the spelling as Esther Stille, but spelling was quite variable in those days, so that is no worry.)

2 comments:

Grampa Earl said...

Information:
SAR: http://www.sar.org
DAR: http://www.dar.org
DUP: http://www.dupinternational.org/

Nancy Sabina said...

I probably don't want to join at this point in my life, but it's cool to know that I can if I ever decide to!