Members of the Daughters of the American Revolution will bring a lot of history with them as they gather in Kalispell this week for the annual state conference.

Each of these women can trace their bloodline to ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War that led to America’s independence. And some members have more family connections than others.

Catherine Lane of Kalispell, the state regent for Montana Daughters of the American Revolution, has patriots on all four sides of her family tree.

“I’ve proven 11 patriots and I’m working on six more,” Lane said about the genealogy research that goes back seven and eight generations.

She learned about the organization as a young girl because her maternal grandmother from Rhinebeck, New York, was an active DAR member starting in the early 1940s.

“All I remember is she got dressed up, wore a hat and gloves and went off to meetings,” Lane recalled.

Lane joined the Chief Ignace Chapter in Kalispell in 2000, in part to honor her grandmother’s service to the organization.

“I wasn’t going to be involved, but somewhere my plan went wrong,” she said with a laugh.

As the state regent, she’s closing in on the final details of making sure the state conference Thursday through Saturday in Kalispell goes off without a hitch.

Another of her duties is visiting each of Montana’s 11 chapters once a year — no small feat in a state the size of Montana. Lane also attends national board meetings at the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and attends the annual Continental Congress.

Daughters of the American Revolution owns a full city block quite close to the White House in Washington, D.C., Lane pointed out.

“Many of the TV shows that show the outside of the White House are actually scenes taken at DAR buildings,” she said. “The buildings look very similar.”

The National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890 during a time marked by a revival in patriotism, according to the organization’s website.

“Women felt the desire to express their patriotic feelings and were frustrated by their exclusion from men’s organizations formed to perpetuate the memory of ancestors who fought to make this country free and independent,” the website states, noting the organization has admitted more than 950,000 members in the past 125 years.

Promoting historic preservation, community service, education and patriotism are hallmarks of the organization’s mission. The goal is to keep these timeless principles at the forefront, even in an ever-changing world.

While the Flathead Valley is fortunate to have two DAR chapters — Chief Ignace in Kalispell and the Bird Woman Falls Chapter formed in 2007 in Columbia Falls — retaining membership is an ongoing challenge, Lane acknowledged.

“With DAR generally, the average age is 69 to 70,” she said. “We’re like many other organizations” struggling with membership retention.

The national organization has been urging chapters to bring in “junior” members, those 18 to 35, and groom them for future leadership positions.

Members must be able to prove a lineal bloodline descent to a person who served in the Revolutionary War by submitting documents such as birth or death certificates. While that might seem like a daunting task, Daughters of the American Revolution has one of the largest genealogy libraries in the country, Lane said.

The organization’s website, www.dar.org, has a wealth of information about how to get started with family research.

“In recent years there’s been more interest in history and genealogy,” she said, pointing out how the Internet has helped with searching for family history. “I feel DAR will continue to be a viable organization.

“DAR has brought me an interest in history which I never really had before. I never liked history,” Lane said. “But this [organization] has brought renewed interest in history. It’s been fun and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.”

For more information about the Chief Ignace Chapter, email lane at cjlanewj@hotmail.com.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.