Hi: I was Registrar of my local NSDAR Chapter in the early 1980's. Many women wanted to join and had an ancestor in the Rev. War but when it came to proving it, that was a different story. You have to prove each generation from yourself back to the person who was either in the War as a soldier or did some kind of special duty. Your best thing to do is to ask the DAR if someone has gone in on this ancestor and pay the fee and obtain the copy of the application. When a woman is accepted into the DAR, she has the right to either request that her application remain private or that it can be made public. I chose to make mine public so that it might help someone else. I obtained a copy of an application of my mother's first cousin, someone she never mentioned. I didn't even know the woman existed. I knew of her father though because my mother always talked about her Uncle Preston. The application gave me some ideas as to where the information that I needed would be. For instance, it told me where I would be able to obtain the military record from the State of New Jersey. The DAR normally will not accept Family Histories but in the case of my mother's cousin, they had, so I knew I could use that history. I had my birth certificate, both of my parents' birth, marriage and death certificates to prove that they were indeed my parents, although it was my mother's line that contained the Rev. War ancestor. From there, I went back to her parents - marriage and death certificates - and back and back. Each generation, I used the corresponding page from the family history. In fact, I could have gone back further as I got information on my Rev. War soldier's parents. The hardest thing for me was to find the DAR. Through a chance conversation with two ladies at the library, I finally found a chapter. I then worked for the next three months to put my papers together. Fortuantely, where I worked, my boss let me use the copier on my lunch hour and after work. He thought I was crazy to want to join the DAR but he humored me. I got everything together and gave it to the Registrar of the Chapel I joined. One week later, I got a late-night telephone call from the Registrar, telling me I had been accepted. This doesn't always happen so quickly; it may be months before they go through your material and accept you or not accept you. They may ask for further information. In my case, I had a great-grandmother with two surnames. Later, when I saw the original copy of my application, someone had written by the two surnames: adopted. I have two ancestors in the Cumberland County Militia, PA whom I could put in as supplementals. However, I have an ancestor who was supposedly at Saratoga in Morgan's Rifleman, Con't Line, and the NSDAR has never heard of him. When I last wrote to them, some years ago, they were thrilled and hoped that I would find more on him so that I could bring in a new ancestor. None of my ancestors, as far as I know, ever got a pension. My Rev. War ancestor (the one I was accepted by the DAR) died in Kentucky in 1818. I do have a pension record of a possible relative who got the pension in 1818 in Cincinnati, OH. I believe he got $8.00 a month. When he died in 1822, his wife applied and she had a terrible time getting it. She finally got it and had it until the 1840's when she died. When I received the pension file in the 1980's on this man, I noted that his son had asked for the information on his father, for family history purposes, in the 1850's. His great-granddaughter asked for the information in 1895. This soldier, by the way, was a Green Mountain Boy and apparently was at the Battle of Saratoga as well. I was very proud to be accepted into the NSDAR. They are the oldest women's organization in the USA and own the land around the White House. They do so much good - they have schools for underprivileged children. To me it was a honor to be part of this great organization, since my mother's people came to this country long before the American Revolution. My mother always talked about her family and the history around them. I was amazed at one of our readers on this list who had 35 ancestors in that war. She is to be honored. I will probably never find that many because I am the daughter of an immigrant, as my father was born in Wales and came to this country in the 20th century. However, he had two relatives in the American Revolution - one at Lexington and Concord in the Welsh Fusilliers and the second at Bunker HIll in the American army. I wish I knew their names but I don't. I'm proud to be an American. Annie