California Genealogical Society blog: Tuesday Tales From the Road

CGS member Mary Mettler is still on the road. This is her fifth installment:

We finished up our wonderful week at the beach to celebrate my sister-in-law's 90th birthday. The weather was great, and her birthday party turned out to be a grand blast with about 50 or 60 people. I stopped in Bealeton, Virginia for my niece's 46th birthday and headed to Washington, D.C. to stay with friends, Sadye and Mel Doxie. The genealogy goal was to spend two days at the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library and do a bit of sightseeing on the third day.

The DAR Library is a worthwhile stop for genealogists. I was disappointed that not much information was in my various Patriots' files. In the "old" days, the DAR genealogists either sent the supporting information back to the applicant or threw it away! Gasp! Recently, however, the Library has scanned everything; and all applications and supporting documents are available on computer terminals at the Library. For older Patriots, the best I could do was to go through each application for a Patriot and look for the sources of their information. I found this to be quite tedious!

The second day I used the computer lookups for a number of my ancestors, both Patriots and non-Patriots, and found quite a number of information sources. I also browsed their very extensive book collections and found some, which are not at the Family History Library, including a very interesting Revolutionary War diary of a distant cousin, Amos Farnsworth. He fought at Bunker Hill and in several other battles. I did have a fun surprise for the second day, as Henriette Gordon, a San Francisco DAR friend joined me at the Library.

Mary Mettler and Eleanor Roosevelt
The last day in Washington, D.C., Sadye and I toured all the new monuments that have been built since I lived there (1960 - 1963). I was most impressed with the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. The Wall is amazingly emotional and seemed to have the biggest crowds. Washington, D.C. is very beautiful and should be on all of your agendas for a visit if you haven't been recently. I am at my nephew's in Ellicott City, Maryland. We just got back from seeing Mama Mia - great fun! You didn't think this was all work, did you?

Mary and FDR
I am going to add one more item to my itinerary. My grandnephew, Stephen Schnorf, is in the midst of CBT (Cadet Basic Training) for incoming freshmen at the United States Military Academy at West Point . August 24th is A-Day (Acceptance Day) where they will march and join the rest of the Corps of Cadets. By shaving part of a day in Dorset, Vermont, I will be able to join his family in watching this exciting event. Well, that's the latest from the Road. Next week begins several weeks of solid genealogy, starting in Suffield, Connecticut.

From Your Roving Reporter,
Mary