Update: long...
I am not going to lie, this has been a much more difficult process than I thought it would be. I have not yet been accepted into the local chapter, but my application has just been ok'ed for submission for consideration.
First, let me start off by saying the folks I have been in contact with at SAR have been very helpful and engaging from the beginning. I know that organizations only stay alive if new members join, but I sincerely got the impression these guys want you to be a part of their club and they will help you get there the best of their ability. I have been working with the local registrar who has been a great help finding more information and compiling my application.
Originally, like I noted, I thought I could trace the line through my male side of my family all the way back. Unfortunately, being in Texas and not close to the actual burial sights and other records, many stored in local courthouses till this day, I was not able to confirm my relative was the one whom I found war war records for in North Carolina. But, I started looking to other lines of the family and I found one that I could trace all the way back. It is still my father's line, but it switches to the maternal line around 1900. Interestingly, my middle name is their family name, so I followed that line back next.
The first number of generations were pretty easy. Basically, if your relative was born just after 1830, you can likely find a record of them and trace your generation down the line. This is really easy because in 1850, the federal census started asking for every name of person in the household. Prior to 1850s, they only asked the name of the head of the house and everyone else was a tick mark in a column. So, if you have found a relative in 1850, you can see their wive and children and follow them as they get older through the 1860 and 1870 censuses, and so on. Then, around 1903, Texas started tracking birth and death records pretty well.
The most difficult link to establish for me was to a relative born in 1825. They were too old to appear in the same household as their father in the 1850 Census, but born too soon for the state to have good records of births. I was lucky for two reasons. At some point, some cousins decided to compile family information and write a 600 page genealogy book about the family. They included names, records, supporting documents, family histories, etc. This book was a great help. It showed that they had visited a local courthouse and found records that my relative gave land to all his children, one being the relative I needed to prove the parental link between. (I would not have been able to get this record without traveling to MS). The other was the 1850 census that showed my relative lived next door to his father and three of his other brothers. These names matched the deed record in the book. The local registrar thinks the census together with the deed information is enough circumstantial evidence to prove the link.
What you need: Basically, you need verifiable documentation of each of your line back through the years and the service of a relative in the Revolutionary cause. So, I used a combination of birth certificates, death records, SS applications, CSA headstone applications, census information, deed records, family bible records, and concurrent family history written by family members. If you don't have a single document that proves direct lineage, you can compile several documents that will prove your case, like I explained above. Basically, for a document to count, it has to be something you can produce or someone could verify if need. I saved the images I found on Ancestry and emailed them with my application.
Things to watch out for.: You can't believe everything you see on Ancestry.com or other type of sites. People on there are extremely lazy and will add everything to their relatives whether it makes sense or not. I went down several dead ends because someone on Ancestry added the wrong marriage date or census record to someone. You also can't just rely on old family history passed down for several generations that someone decides to write down someday. For a family history to count, it needs to be concurrent to the time period to be seen as a record. Family bibles do count, but they will want a copies of the relevant pages and the cover page.
Things that will help. Ancestry.com does make it very easy to find some of these records and they search their databases proactively, which helps. Like I mentioned, you just have to use logic and weed out the bad hits. Familysearch.org is another great search engine. Use the DAR website. If you can link to a DAR approved relative or ancestor, you are pretty much done right there. You can also request supporting docs from other DAR members for a fee. This can help point you in the right direction. Also, the Mormon church is a vital research tool when it comes to genealogy. I was only able to find the book about my relatives in two places in the US, Indiana and at the LDS Family Library in Salt Lake. Luckily, the Mormons had digitally scanned the book and I could access it at a local family center here. They have great resources and will help you find what you are looking for.
This has been a fun and frustrating process. It has been tough to think I was finished with my application just to have the registrar ask for more information. But, some of the stuff I have found has been amazing. For example, my Great x 4 grandfather had 8 sons and 3 son-in-laws fight in the Civil War in MS. Two were captured at Vicksburg. On my dad's side, I found a relative that was a Union LT who was killed by a rebel raid north of Chattanooga.
Hopefully my application goes through. And I hope this helps those thinking about applying.
