Zachariah Skaggs and the D.A.R.

I found a post in the January 2008 Rootsweb archive that is interesting for documented descendants of Zachariah Skaggs.  Zachariah was accepted as a patriot by the genealogists of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.), so if you can document a connection to Zachariah, you are eligible for D.A.R. membership.

Etta Skaggs Reid, the Registrar for the Guilford Battle Chapter of the D.A.R. posted this to the Skaggs Rootsweb message board back in January 2008:

This week I received my bi-monthly issue of "American Spirit, Daughters of the American Revolution" magazine. This magazine can be purchased on the shelf at local Barnes and Noble Book stores. As a member of the DAR, I also receive a supplemental to the magazine just for members. Each supplemental issue lists new patriots that were never listed in the old DAR and current DAR Index books.This means that over the 100 years of membership a women never joined under that patriot and now someone has joined which adds him or her to the growing list. They send us the list to keep an update of new Patriots or Soldiers now on the accepted list. My recent issue listed the following: Skaggs:Scaggs Zachariah: b c 1745 d a 6-2-1818 VA m (1) Anne X Nancy He served as a soldier in VA. The professional genealogist who work at the DAR headquarters in Washington DC do not accept an application unless it is fully documented and backed with full proof such as deeds, wills, Bible records, etc. They will not accept pedigree charts or hearsay. They only accept valid documents. So whoever joined the DAR recently under Zachariah Skaggs had full proof of the above data. She furnished documentation for her generation all the way back to Zachariah.

So it looks like those Skaggs who descend from Zachariah Skaggs can apply for D.A.R. membership.  Unfortunately, descendants of Old Peter won't qualify because we don't have any tangible evidence that he was descended from Zachariah.  I think he's likely Zachariah's half-brother from a younger second wife (Ruth Elkins) of Zachariah's father, John Scaggs but we haven't been able to prove it.  If you are related to those Whitt, Olinger, Oney and Skaggs families that descend from Zachariah's son Jeremiah and Hannah Lester you may want to join the D.A.R.

I think it's interesting that someone has documented proof that Zachariah served as a soldier in Virginia during the American Revolution.  I'm assuming they used those 1777 Montgomery County loyalty lists taken by Stephen Trigg as the documentation, but maybe they used some documentation from Lord Dunmore's War in 1774 since I think the D.A.R. considers that to be part of the Revolution.