6th Great-Grandfather John DeLong and First Families of Ohio

This week I have spent a bit of time researching John DeLong, my 6th great-grandfather. John was born around Feb 1731 in New York to Frans DeLong / DeLang and Catharina Dymant, he died 16 Feb 1835 in Mahoning County, Ohio.

While spending times in all the records for John I wondered if he would qualify me for the First Families of Ohio. The First Families of Ohio (FFO) is a lineage society through the Ohio Genealogical Society. I am going to be honest, I don’t normally look for these types of societies. I just like to keep a log of what they make me eligible for. However, on Wednesday night I decided to look into FFO and I am glad I did. The OGS website has a lot of great information on applying for FFO, which I highly recommend everyone read before filling out the application. It tells you that you should not fill the form out based on your tree. Instead, pull together the records and fill it out from there.

I will admit, I am a rebel. I started filling out the form before I read all the details. This means I filled the form out from the information in my tree and I am glad I did it this way, because it shows me the holes I need to work on. This form is going to be my working form. I have a game plan for my application and how I will go through all my information.

As I said above, I do not usually apply to these societies. The only lineage society I belong to is NSDAR, though I am eligible for Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War  (DUCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

I have put together a game plan for my application and I thought I would share it.

FFO Application Game Plan:

1. Finish filling out application
2. Print application to use as a roadmap for further research.
3. Find holes in research that need to be filled, highlight these holes on the working application.
4. Create a research plan(s) for follow up research that needs to be completed.
5. Create virtual folder to hold all records pertaining to the application.
6. Download all images of records and file in virtual folder.
7. Research as needed to fill the holes in application.
8. Make calls, write letters or find someone to pull records if needed.
9. Add citations to all records (see step 3).
10. Print all records in folder (see step 3).
11. Add all records from step 5 to the application by numbering them and listing them on the bottom of the application.
12. Make corrections on the working application as I go.
13. Once all corrections have been made on working application, go to the saved copy and make any corrections needed.
14. Print corrected application, sign and mail.

My goal for this is to have this application completed and mailed in before December 31st which is the deadline each year. I plan to try and work on this a little bit each week and report on my status as I move forward.

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