{"id":1256,"date":"2019-04-20T15:12:32","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T15:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=1256"},"modified":"2019-04-20T15:12:32","modified_gmt":"2019-04-20T15:12:32","slug":"lineage-societies-what-gives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=1256","title":{"rendered":"Lineage Societies  &#8211;  What gives?!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"227\" height=\"222\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/society.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1257\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I am trying hard not to make this a rant so I&#8217;ll let you know up front that I&#8217;m very frustrated with many of the lineage societies&#8217; directions and interpretations of what they consider acceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past year, I&#8217;ve completed a number of society applications for clients and myself.&nbsp; It seems each time there is something a society had a problem with that I couldn&#8217;t see was an issue.&nbsp; In the past month alone, I&#8217;ve had to have lengthy discussions with their genealogist over several sticking points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I could certainly understand if the problem was lack of a record for proof of relationship.&nbsp; I could also understand if it was because the person could not have been in two places at the same time; in other words, analysis of existing records couldn&#8217;t determine which John Smith was the John Smith who would be a qualifying ancestor.&nbsp; If the application directions were completely disregarded, I could also understand a rejection.&nbsp; I cannot understand the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&nbsp;Applying for membership that says &#8220;send proof of [military] service&#8221;&nbsp; and when more than one proof is sent, such as the enrollment application, pension application, 1890 veteran&#8217;s census, newspaper clippings, and family letters to two different organizations for two different U.S. wars and being told in one situation that the sources were &#8220;a little thin&#8221; and in the other, that a record that was housed at the National Personnel Records center were necessary.&nbsp; So, they never heard about the 1973 fire that destroyed the records they wanted?&nbsp; Makes you think twice of the level of genealogical understanding of the organization.&nbsp; How can a pension application, enlistment paperwork and veteran&#8217;s census be considered &#8220;a little thin?<\/li><li>Applying for a designated individual and then being told that the ancestor doesn&#8217;t qualify because he was a nobleman and not royalty.&nbsp; Had to initially laugh at that one because one of the sources for this disputed ancestor was titled, &#8220;The Interim King.&#8221;&nbsp; I was able to obtain qualification based on the nobleman&#8217;s wife&#8217;s father but for the life of me, I don&#8217;t understand the difference between a nobleman serving as king and someone who inherited it from his father.&nbsp; The individual who inherited the title came from a line that at one point had the first ruler.&nbsp; What made that person royal?&nbsp; I just don&#8217;t understand.&nbsp; The organization has yet to explain it to me.<\/li><li>Being told the application was being rejected because the year for sources was omitted.&nbsp; When I asked the application number that purportedly occurred I didn&#8217;t get a response.&nbsp; I always keep a copy and I couldn&#8217;t find anywhere where I missed a date.&nbsp; A week later I received an email that no further information was required.&nbsp; I understand people make mistakes but own up to it.<\/li><li>Being told that your application was accepted and two weeks later receiving an email stating that your application wasn&#8217;t accepted.&nbsp; Huh?&nbsp; In that situation, the membership chair had obtained a list from the genealogist and assumed that names placed on the list had all been verified but evidently that wasn&#8217;t the case; the list was for everyone who had submitted an application.&nbsp; I understand errors happen but you&#8217;d think that the board would all be on the same page.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not knocking lineage societies.&nbsp; I think they serve a tremendous purpose.&nbsp; Not only is there fraternity and hopefully, camaraderie, the ideals and promotion of the area of history they represent is important.&nbsp; They are also a wonderful place to save genealogical information and honor our ancestors.&nbsp; That said, I really wish they would get their act together.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am trying hard not to make this a rant so I&#8217;ll let you know up front that I&#8217;m very frustrated with many of the lineage societies&#8217; directions and interpretations of what they consider acceptable. In the past year, I&#8217;ve completed a number of society applications for clients and myself.&nbsp; It seems each time there &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=1256\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Lineage Societies  &#8211;  What gives?!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[624],"class_list":["post-1256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trends-and-musings","tag-lineage-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1258,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions\/1258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}