Daughters of the American Revolution
A Cranston in the Revolution
A Rhode Island Certification of 1897 — thecranstonline.com
Among the documents in the family archive is a single sheet, issued at Providence on May 4, 1897, over the seal of the State of Rhode Island. It certifies what the state’s own Revolutionary War records show about the service of a man named John Cranston. It was obtained by Josephine P. Cranston of Woodstock, Ohio, and endorsed by her in her own hand as a true copy. A copy of this document is below.
The document records three militia enlistments in the winter and summer of 1777–78 — short terms in different companies, which was the ordinary pattern of Rhode Island service while the British held Newport. South Kingstown, where the first company was stationed, was a garrisoned post through that occupation.
Several details check out. Charles P. Bennett became Secretary of State of Rhode Island in 1894 and was in office when he signed. Colonel Archibald Crary commanded Rhode Island troops throughout the war and is himself a recognized DAR patriot ancestor. Colonel Charles Dyer likewise commanded a Rhode Island militia regiment in this period.
Why Josephine sought it
The date is telling. The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890. Seven years later a Cranston woman in Ohio paid a fee to the Rhode Island Secretary of State for exactly the kind of service certification a DAR applicant of that era would request. It is very likely she was applying.
How to join the DAR
Membership is open to any woman eighteen or older, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove lineal bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided the cause of American independence. The service may be military, civil, or patriotic, and must fall between April 19, 1775 and November 26, 1783. Military service expressly includes state and local militia, not only the Continental Line. An applicant must document every statement of birth, marriage, and death connecting her to the patriot, as well as the patriot’s service itself. The National Society reserves the right to determine the acceptability of all service and all proof offered.
Does this document qualify?
The service does. Three militia enlistments, all inside the qualifying window, in accepted units — and certified not by family tradition but by the state that holds the records.
The document alone does not. It establishes that a John Cranston served. It says nothing about his children, and nothing that ties him to our line. John Cranston was not a rare name in Rhode Island. A descendant would still need the chain, generation by generation, documented at every link. This certificate would sit at the top of that chain as the service proof, and it is a strong one.
One shortcut is worth trying first. If Josephine completed her application, an approved lineage may already exist in the DAR Genealogical Research System — a free public database on the DAR website. Search it before redoing her work. (Click on the DAR Genealogical Research System to go to the DAR site.)
Research Assistance
Cranston Research Assistance
If you use the search site, the ancestor number for John Cranston is: Ancestor #: A027514
DAR Genealogical Research System
What a descendant would still need
Note: If any of the Cranston descendants gathers the appropriate documentation for eligibility in the DAR, please SHARE IT. I will post the documentation.
This certificate proves service. It does not prove descent.
Our “John Cranston” (b. 1855) was the son of Peleg Cranston. John Cranston died in 1825 in Woodstock, Ohio.
Four things would have to be added to it.
The lineage chain, link by link. A birth, marriage, or death record for every generation from the applicant back to John Cranston. Much of the lower chain is already in this archive: the 1934 Painter–Cranston marriage record from Harding County, Marion Cranston’s own account naming her parents as Christopher and Elizabeth, the 1905 Galesburg obituary naming Christopher Cranston of North Dakota among the survivors of Charles Edwards Cranston, and the 1860 Union County probate record of C. E. Cranston’s marriage to Keturah Taylor Park.
The missing generations. The gap runs from John Cranston of Rhode Island in the 1770s to Christopher Cranston, father of Charles Edwards Cranston, who was born near Woodstock, Ohio, in 1833. That is roughly two generations and one migration — Rhode Island to Ohio — and it is the work that has not yet been done.
Proof that this is the right John Cranston. The name was common in Rhode Island; the Cranstons had been prominent there since the colonial governors of that name. Something must connect the soldier in these muster rolls to the man who fathered the next link in our chain — a will, a deed, a probate distribution, or a pension file.
The underlying Rhode Island record. A certification from 1897 is good evidence, but a registrar may wish to see the muster rolls behind it. Those papers survive at the Rhode Island State Archives in Providence.
Steps to take
Here are the instructions to order Record Copies both online and by mail. Feel free to look at the Members who have used John Cranston (A027514) as their Patriot. There may be one with a lineage very similar to your relative who is interested in joining.
Click on the Links for Instructions and Forms
Instructions for Ordering Online Record Copies
Record Copy Order Form
For anyone in the family who wants to pursue this, the path is well worn and the DAR provides a good deal of free help along it.
- Confirm you are eligible to apply. Any woman eighteen or older may apply. Descent must be lineal and by bloodline — adoptive lines do not qualify, though descent through a birth parent does. Men descending from the same ancestor may apply to the Sons of the American Revolution instead.
- Write down what you already know. Start with yourself and work backward one generation at a time — name, date and place of birth, marriage, and death for each person, and how each connects to the next. You do not need to have it all before you begin; you need to know where the holes are.
- Search the DAR Genealogical Research System. It is free and open to the public at the DAR website. Search the Ancestor database for John Cranston of Rhode Island to see whether he is already an established patriot, and search the member and descendant databases for Josephine P. Cranston. If an approved application already exists, much of the chain may already be documented and on file at the DAR Library.
- Contact a chapter early. Fill out the Membership Interest Form on the DAR website, or find a chapter through the chapter locator. A chapter registrar will work with you at no cost, and knows what that particular office will and will not accept as proof. Doing this before you spend money on records will save you some.
- Gather the documents for the recent generations first. Birth, marriage, and death certificates come from state vital records offices and county courthouses. Work back until you reach the point where civil registration stops — in most states somewhere around 1900 — and then rely on census returns, church registers, cemetery records, obituaries, wills, and land records.
- Close the Ohio gap. Census records from 1850 forward name every household member. Champaign and Union county probate files, wills, and deeds are the strongest sources for establishing who fathered whom in that generation. Woodstock lies in Champaign County; the Cranston marriage of 1860 was recorded in Union County next door.
- Look for a pension file. If John Cranston applied for a pension under the acts of 1818 or 1832, the file at the National Archives may name his wife, his children, and his residence, and would go a long way toward settling which John Cranston this is. These files are indexed and widely available in digitized form.
- Request the Rhode Island records. Write to the Rhode Island State Archives at Providence for the muster rolls and military papers underlying the 1897 certification. While you are at it, ask for a fresh certified copy — our sheet is a photocopy of a photocopy, and three passages on it are no longer clearly legible.
- Complete the DAR application with your registrar. The National Society requires its own form and does not accept applications filed with other hereditary societies. Your proof documents are submitted with it and become part of the DAR Library’s genealogical collection, where they will help the next descendant who comes along.
Anyone who takes this up is welcome to write to the archive. Whatever is found should come back into it.
Transcript
State of Rhode Island
Secretary of State’s Office
Providence.
May 4, 1897
I hereby certify that it appears of record in this office that John Cranston served in the revolutionary war as private in Capt. Edward Carr’s Co. of Militia in Col. Dyer’s Regt. stationed in South Kingstown from November 21 to December 1[6], 1777. Also private in Capt. Stephen Babcock’s Co. a detachment from Col. Chas. Dyer’s Regt. from December 19 1777 to January 22 1778. Also private in Capt. James Parker’s Co. in Col. Archibald Crary’s Regt. from May 16 to September 16, 1778.
Attest. Charles P. Bennett, Secretary of State
[Seal of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations]
I hereby certify this to be a true copy of the original.
Scott [W.] [Kinsfield], Notary Public, Champaign county, Ohio.
True Copy — Josephine P. Cranston, Woodstock, Ohio.
Bracketed readings are uncertain on the copy.
