Thursday, January 1, 2009

DAR Library in Washington DC

A few weeks ago I had to be in DC on business and had about 2 hours of free time. I went to the DAR library very near the White House as this has been something on my to-do list for several years. I wish I had had 2 weeks to spend there. If you are doing general genealogy research or are researching Revolutionary War ancestors, this is a wonderful place to visit.

Recently the DAR scanned all of their membership applications and supporting documents (nearly 9 million documents) and are building a searchable database. Some of this information can be found at the DAR public website at http://www.dar.org/ but if you want to see the actual scanned images, you have to be in the DAR library using one of their in-house computers.

In just the 2 hours that I had I found some very interesting information about my Rev War ancestor. I found that he had lived in Bedford County on the Juniata river and in Baltimore Co MD as well as Washington County PA during the war. From this info I was able to find a map of the property he owned in Bedford Co.

If you get a chance to visit the DAR genealogy library, I urge you to do so. It is a wonderful repository for family research.