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National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America

American lineage society

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ133270571 ↗
Source-derived summary

The National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America (often abbreviated as NSDFPA) is a lineage society for women who directly descend from an American colonist who arrived in the colonies between May 13, 1607, and May 13, 1687, and who directly descend from a patriot of the American Revolution.

History

The National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America was founded on June 7, 1898, by Eugenia Washington, a great-grandniece of George Washington who previously co-founded the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1890, Mrs. Henry V. Boynton, and Mrs. William L. Mason. Washington established the lineage society as a means to preserve Colonial American history, foster patriotism, and encourage appreciation for American history. She wanted to avoid "bickering" among a large number of members, which she experienced in the Daughters of the American Revolution, and decided that this national society would "remain small and cordial" by excluding membership only to women who were direct descendants of a colonist who arrived in America between May 13, 1607, and May 13, 1687, and that they also meet the membership qualifications for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Up until 1975, the society published thirty-four volumes of lineage records of its members, which were made availablle at many libraries. In 1975, the national society consolidated all records into one volume and published an index to its lineage records.

Washington intended for the society to not surpass 300 members but, by the 1980s, there were over 2,800 members.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America” is american lineage society. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through National, Society and Daughters, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1607, 1687, 1898, 1890—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, National, Society and Daughters is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american lineage society” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q133270571. VIAF identifies the subject as 123122997. The Library of Congress control number is n50039130. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1607, 1687, 1898 and 1890.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America primary sources, National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America archive and National research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “National Society of Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.