Genealogy Research at the DAR Library

The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library in Washington DC is a valuable tool for anyone interested in doing genealogical research. While of particular interest to members and prospective members, the library is open to anyone who is interested in viewing its holdings. A small fee is required for a non-member to enter but members can obtain admission free of charge with a current membership card.

Advance preparation will help a patron get the most out of his visit. Visiting the online catalog prior to the visit will result in more time spent in actual research. While this might sound like an obvious statement, even the seasoned genealogist might fail to plan their visit adequately.

The first step is to visit the DAR website. Various topics about the work of the DAR are shown on the home page. For the purpose of our discussion, find the one that says Genealogy and run the cursor over it. The following will appear:

Click on the word "Genealogy" and a new page will open.


You should now see this menu option on your left. If you place your cursor over it two options will appear. It does not matter if you choose "Search the Library Catalog" or "Tips for Searching the Library Catalog" because both are found on the same page. Click on either option and read as much of the instruction material as necessary.

The next step is to choose your search options. Here is where the "tips" selection will come in handy. Suppose you are interested in a certain surname, either of an ancestor or of an author. Type the surname in "the word(s)" field. Choose the options in the "find" and "that" boxes to limit the search if necessary.

As an example, I chose the surname "Critchlow" as my search in "the word(s)" field since this is one of my family lines. I found that if my choices were too narrow (such as author, title, subject, or containing) I had few hits. But by making my "find" option "Anything" and my "that" option "closely match" I receive 12 matches, including manuscripts!

If I were to do the same with the surname "Smith" there would be far too many matches for the report. Therefore, I would need to limit my search options in either the "find" or the "that" box or both.

I can see from the results of my Critchlow search that the library contains items of interest to me. I can save them to a list. I do this by placing the cursor over the check boxes of those I wish to save.

Once I have compiled a list I can work with it even further. At the top of the page are buttons. The ones at the right are used specifically for working with the list. The list can be reviewed or it can be deleted.

For my own purpose, I would click on the "Review List" button. Not only does this bring up my list, but it even makes the items themselves hyperlinks to related material. By clicking on the hyperlinks I find more materials that I might not realize were pertinent to my family. I can then save more material to my list.

After I have compiled my list of desired research materials, my last step is to print it. There is no "print" button directly on the page, but by using my computer's print button I can easily print out a list of the books and manuscripts from the collections in the DAR library that I wish to see.

Happy hunting!