Check List for the
Preparation of Membership Applications
Office of the Registrar General
General Society of Colonial Wars
P.O. Box 269, Roxbury, Connecticut 06783
As you can readily appreciate, a primary concern of a Society such as ours, with strict genealogical requirements for membership, must be the preservation for posterity of family records, as completely and accurately as possible. To assist us in maintaining this desired standard, your observance of the following essential requirements in the preparation and submission of membership applications will be deeply appreciated and of mutual benefit. The electronic application forms created for the General Society by Tracy A. Crocker help the applicants to easily achieve this goal.
Please be sure that two copies of the final application on acid free paper are submitted to the State Registrar. It is preferable that they be printed out in letter size as most of the attachments will be in that same format. A strong metal clip is the best thing to hold the packet together .The State Registrar first sends the papers to the State Genealogist for verification. When this is done, and the papers are successfully verified, one copy of the finalized application is sent to the Registrar General, and one copy is kept by the State Society for their records. Alternatively, applicants have sent the completed electronic application to the State Registrar over the internet, as an e-mail attachment, and he has e-mailed it on to the genealogist for verification. The accompanying documents have been sent by regular mail. Upon verification, the application is returned to the applicant as an e-mail attachment. This saves time and allows corrections and additions to be made neatly, before the applicant has printed the application out on acid free paper.
For safe keeping the State copies of completed applications should be kept in a local historical society or library, if possible.
Full names are to be given on the applications. In every generation beginning with that of the applicant (and his spouse if married) references are required for all statements as to names, dates and places of birth, marriage and death, and qualifying service. Every applicant must submit a full copy of his birth record which has the names of his parents and date and place of his birth. Some states issue a short form birth certificate which has no genealogical merit. Often birth, marriage and death certificates can be obtained for the first four or five generations from local or state offices of vital records. As a rule, a full copy of a death certificate notes the date and place of birth, and the names of the parents and spouse of the decedent. If this is the case, a birth certificate is not required for that individual. Photocopies of family Bible records, wills, deeds and other court records are acceptable sources. Letters from cemeteries with entries concerning burials in family plots and pictures of tombstones can be attached and noted, and well as church records of baptisms, marriages and burials. Copies of Federal Census returns which can now be easily found on “Ancestry.Com” are qualifying sources. Photocopies of newspaper and other periodical announcements of family events can be used, but the information as to the name of the paper, date and place of publication and the page number should be noted. In the case of printed sources such as family genealogies, local and state histories, and other printed biographical works, photocopies of the title pages and other pages which note the publisher and date publication must accompany the application. The proper citation for each printed work is (1) author (last name first); (2) title of the book; (3) place of publication; (4) publisher; (5) date of publication; (6) page number, or volume and page number in the case of a multi volume work. The expandable boxes on the electronic form allow room for any number of sources to be cited. When the printed work is cited in successive generations, one should note the last name of the author with “op. cit.”, and the pages numbers, or if it is exactly the same reference, the author’s name and “IBID”.
Duplicate copies of the all sources should be submitted. Lineage papers from other hereditary societies cannot be accepted as proofs, although they are often helpful as guidelines for sources leading back to a qualifying ancestor.
Short Form Applications are available electronically for applicants whose fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers and close cousins are, or have been, members in the last fifty years. Before that time no references were required for the first four generations and many errors were made on the applications as a result. Vital record certificates linking the applicant to the forebear or common forbear with a member are dealt with in the same manner as on a Long Form Application. They should begin with the vital certificates of the applicant and his spouse and work backward to connect him with the application of the member. A copy of the application of the relative who is or has been a member should be attached. These copies can be obtained for a fee from the General Society of Colonial Wars, The Langsdale Library, 1420 Maryland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201-5779, or from the Secretary of the State Society where the relative was a member. Again the forms and attachments should be in duplicate and handled in the same way as noted in paragraph 2 above.
Supplemental Forms are also available electronically for members who wish to honor additional ancestors. The application of the member may be used as the source in each generation that is the same as on his original application. When it diverges from that lineage, sources should be cited as noted in paragraph 3 above. The Supplemental Application and the references should also be submitted in duplicate, as with the Long Form and Short Form Applications.