Talk:Sons of the American Revolution

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famous SAR members
I find two of the more famous SAR members quite interesting. They are Winston Churchill and King Carlos. I would be very interested in learning who their ancestors were who fought in the American Revolution and the accompanying stories. Very interesting indeed. --Bumpusmills1 23:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * quote from Winston Churchill at http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/he-had-mayflower-ancestors

His mother, Jennie Jerome of Brooklyn, New York, later Lady Randolph Churchill, was a noted beauty of her day and Winston, as a young cavalry officer, shamelessly used all the influence she was able to bring to bear in his quest to see action in different parts of the globe from Cuba in 1895 and the North-West Frontier of India in 1897, to the Sudan in 1898 and South Africa in 1899. Through his maternal grandfather, Leonard Jerome, sometime proprietor and editor of The New York Times, he had at least two forebears who fought against the British in the American War of Independence: one great-grandfather, Samuel Jerome, served in the Berkshire County Militia while another, Major Libbeus Ball, of the 4th Massachusetts Regiment, marched and fought with George Washington's army at Valley Forge. Furthermore Leonard Jerome's maternal grandfather, Reuben Murray, served as a lieutenant in the Connecticut and New York Regiments, while his wife Clara's grandfather, Ambrose Hall, was a captain in the Berkshire County Militia at Bennington. Indeed I have found no evidence of any ancestor who fought with the British in this misguided conflict, which Chatham and Burke had been so eager to avoid! Mingusboodle (talk) 22:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Churchill
I believe Churchill's ancestral relationship comes through his American born mother Jennie Jerome. I do not know the ancestral relationship of HM King Juan Carlos, but Spain was a member of the anti-British coalition, so any one of his ancestors who fought against Britain during the conflict would make him eligible, even if it was not in America. --Great Scott 4:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The only reference for this is a very brief sentence in a promotional paragraph on the SAR website, and all a quick Google search can find is copies of this page and that one. Did SAR simply declare him to be a member, or are they simply implying he is a son of the American revolution in the general sense? It does seem It does seem rather unlikely he'd accept membership, being a royalist Tory prime minister of the United Kingdom, and I'd imagine if it were true such a fact would be rather more widespread... not just a few very tenuously backed words on a promotional frat webpage  (i.e., this is a load of old cobblers). The name of the organisation is not merely patriotically American, but is in some sense is militarily anti-British, not leaving much room for this to have been some act of diplomacy, like his honorary US citizenship. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.115.52 (talk) 19:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your assessment. Sir Winston Churchill was made a lifetime member on 4 March 1964, as a descendant of a US soldiers during the revolution.  Other members of his family have also been members.  Churchill had to accept the membership, or it would not be valid- just like President Obama is not a member because he hasn't signed his application.  It should no more surprise anyone that Winston Churchill would accept this membership than other world leaders who maintain a membership in the fraternity merely to remind the US of historic ties.  A younger Churchill might have declined such things (as he did the first time he was offered the Order of the Garter), but post-WWII Churchill was keen to such things.


 * Churchill was very proud of his heritage through his American mother, and wrote a volume of US history in his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples . If the US and Great Britain were torn apart during George III, it could be said that they were reunited under George V and George VI, during an era when Churchill served as PM.  Churchill referenced his revolutionary ancestors in a speech during his visit to Colonial Williamsburg in the 1940s, long before joining the SAR.  Finally, it should come as no surprise that the reference is the SAR itself, since they are the only organization keeping the actual documentation of their membership.  If you wish to challenge their claims, ask for a copy of Churchill's record and see if he signed it. Mingusboodle (talk) 16:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That said, I agree that if you can document a person's membership in the SAR, the best place for that is on that person's page, not on this one. We can't possibly make a comprehensive list of SAR members here, so unless someone is truely noteworth, it's probably best not to add to this list. Mingusboodle (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

List of SAR members
The list of notable SAR members has gotten quite large. I believe it distracts from the article, and we'd be better off if we split the list into a separate article "List of notable members of the Sons of the American Revolution." It won't take much work, and I'm willing to do it, but I'd like a little feedback first. Canute (talk) 01:51, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


 * sounds good to me. It's definitely distracting from the prose.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 17:26, 19 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I just noticed that we never did this, and in the meantime the list of former SAR members has grown to easily more than half of the article. I'll wait a few days in case anyone objects; otherwise, I'd like to move all those sections to a new "List" article of notable SAR members, and reduce the size of this article by limiting the scope to the organization itself.  Let me know either way. Canute (talk) 18:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I finally got around to it. List of Members of the Sons of the American Revolution.  Nothing has been removed from this article, yet.  I will eventually pare down the list here, but I'll pause for feedback. Canute (talk) 17:33, 30 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Sorry, this fell off my radar. I'm going to mercilessly gut the list on this page but ensure everyone is listed on List of Members of the Sons of the American Revolution.  I assume most would want to keep a short list, so I'll need your ideas on how to determine who to keep.  (Alternatively, we could just remove everyone and keep a link to the list page.) Canute (talk) 20:24, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Obama
I talked to on the IRC help channel; that's how they knew the LA Times would confirm Obama's eligibility. The LA Times definitely meets Wikipedia's standards of reliability, and it reports the head of the Iowa branch of the NSSAR himself invited Obama to join. We can both expect the head of a State branch of the NSSAR to be familiar with the eligibility criteria for his own organization and the LA Times to truthfully report on the invitation; I don't see any doubts here at all. If that helps, The New York Times and, for what it's worth, Crooks and Liars (not a particularly reliable source) confirm Obama's eligibility, too. Huon (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Sons of the American Revolution. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091015022552/http://www.californiasar.org/forms/PRESIDENTS.pdf to http://www.californiasar.org/forms/PRESIDENTS.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070928063705/http://www.californiasar.org/images/SpringCompatriot07_R.pdf to http://www.californiasar.org/images/SpringCompatriot07_R.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304063956/http://missar.org/PDF/WMM%20Dec%2010.pdf to http://missar.org/PDF/WMM%20Dec%2010.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110604121539/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/09.14/26-gates.html to http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/09.14/26-gates.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160117162021/http://www.hlg.edu/newsinfo/news-story.php?id=1426%2F to http://www.hlg.edu/newsinfo/news-story.php?id=1426%2F

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Presidential patriot ancestors
The article lists 6 U.S. presidents who qualify as patriot ancestors, but there is no citation. The list includes George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. Without a citation, I'm curious if Washington should qualify for this list since he had no children. In other words, he cannot be used to gain membership to the SAR. I also question the exclusion of John Quincy Adams, who served as a U.S. diplomat during the Revolution. Note that JQA is also not listed anywhere else in the document although he was a literal son of John Adams. Looking for clarification, thanks. Canute (talk) 17:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * SAR Logo png Transparent.png