Society Saturday

Society Saturday is one of the writing prompts provided by GeneaBloggers today.  I laughed when I saw it because I've certainly become a 'society girl' this week!  Earlier in the week, my application for the Huguenot Society of the Founders of Manakin in the Colony of Virginia was accepted and sent in for official approval.  Then just this morning, my application and check were both accepted by the registrar for my local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Woo-hoo!  I'm on a society roll!

Of course, these applications have only been sent in and not 'officially' accepted yet, but I’m certainly hopeful.  I intend to send in my application for the National Huguenot Society as soon as possible. I began with the Manakin group because they have a fairly active chapter of that group here in my city, and the National organization doesn’t.

I guess my biggest surprise about all of this is that I've actually gone to the trouble to apply to these societies.  In all of my years of family history research, I never had a desire or even a goal to join one of these organizations.  I remember thinking, "oh, that would be nice," but never thought that I would really attempt to join one. Honestly, I always pictured the members of those groups as ‘little old ladies with nothing better to do.’  Boy, was I wrong about that! 

But even more importantly, I've never really thought of myself as a 'society girl' or a ‘joiner’ in any way, shape or form.  Come to think of it, however, I was a member of a college sorority and even a high school sorority. And of course there are the numerous educational and genealogical groups I belong to, and even groups relating to other interests.  Okay, maybe I'd better re-think that not being a society girl/joiner idea about myself.

But seriously, I've always been an 'out of the box' person, basically, a nonconformist in many ways. I wear my hair to my waist and have done so for many years. Oh, wait.  I've started wearing it differently now, mainly in a bun of sorts on the top of my head.  That's right. I decided a couple of years ago that since I was becoming a senior - I mean mature - adult that I should probably try to start looking like one. So I've been trying to pretend to be mature even though I know that on the inside I'm still only the little girl that my husband continuously, and lovingly, reminds me that I am. I guess I'm fooling myself though because reality does tend to set in that first time you have to show your Medicare card.  I did that just yesterday.  It was not pretty.

Nevertheless, mature or not, it just hit me a year or so ago that I wanted the lines of my ancestors that I’ve spent years researching, to be ‘acknowledged’ by certain lineage societies.  I guess that after years of doing the research, the urge to ‘join a society’ just creeps up on you.

In the past, when I first began my serious research, I will admit to thinking about being able to prove my lineage for the Mayflower Society.  As a history teacher, I knew that this was ‘the one’ that would be important for me to prove.  Do I have any ancestors who came over on the Mayflower?  Nope. Not a one.  Does my husband, who is disinterested at best in my genealogical research, have Mayflower ancestors?  Of course!  

So now I’ve promised him that the next society that I’ll be working on will be to prove his line to the Mayflower Society. Funny thing how he’s suddenly interested!  And I have honestly and truly begun that attempt.

Of course, along the way in my ‘spare’ time, I think I’ll just take a look at my lineage proofs for the Jamestown Society, the Colonial Dames, and the numerous other societies for which I qualify.

This society stuff is addictive. Somebody needs to stop me!