How To Join The Cause!
Membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans (we call it the SCV for short) is open to all male descendants of any veteran who served honorably in the Confederate armed forces by either lineal or collateral ancestry. A lineal ancestor is someone that is related to you through a direct bloodline. An example would be a Grand, Great-Grand, or a Great-Great-Grandfather. A collateral ancestor is somebody that is related to you indirectly, usually by marriage or an offspring of a lineal ancestor. Such examples would be Uncles, Cousins, or by Marriage.
Membership can be obtained through either direct or collateral family lines and kinship to a veteran must be documented genealogically. The minimum age for full membership is 12. The SCV also offers Cadet Membership for children younger than 12.
Applicants should submit an application form, along with a detailed genealogy describing your relationship to the veteran, and proof of his service. Documents and family trees sourced form the popular Ancestry.com are acceptable, but you must have some form of proof that your ancestor served in the Confederate Cause. Acceptable documents include enlistment forms, discharge forms, and applications for pensions or war injuries reparations. In actualiy, it sounds pretty intimidating, but its a lot more easy than it sounds and we'll be more than happy to help you aquire what you need.
Determining Your Ancestry
We suggest to people who are actively attempting to research their ancestry to first try one of the many online ancestrial sites on the Internet. Ancestry.com is the most well known of the sites and uses the ancestrial archives that was developed by the Church of Latter Day Saints (The Mormons). their archives are renowned for it's extensive records.
If you cannot finds information online, contact the State Archives from where your ancestors were during the Civil War. Once found, the State will provide you copies of the veteran's military service records. All Southern state's archives have microfilm records of the soldiers who fought from/for that state and a copy of the information can be obtained for a nominal fee. In addition, the former Confederate states awarded pensions to veterans and their widows. All of these records contain a wealth of information that can be used to document military service.
In addition, the SCV has a large network of genealogists to assist you in tracing your ancestor's Confederate service.
Once you have acceptable proof of your ancestrial tie to a Confederate Veteran, we can help you prepare your application form. Once the paperwork is complete, simply give your paperwork to our Camp Adjutant along with your dues and he will do all the footwork for you. It takes about a month for the paperwork to get processed.
But if you do not have this information, we certainly do not want that to stop you from participating with us. We invite you to come and join us at our membership meetings as well as our other events as you research your heritage. We enjoy having visitors in our midsts and like seeing our good friends as much as we can.
OK, if you discover that you can't prove an ancestrial connection to a Confederate Veteran, all is not lost! The SCV also offers a "Friends of the SCV" membership for our like-minded brethren.
Hierarchy
The SCV is essentially divided into three sections; National, State, and Local. We use military terms of the Civil War era to define our relationship to each other.
Nationally, the SCV is governed by its members acting through delegates to the annual convention. The General Executive Council, composed of elected and appointed officers, conducts the organization's business between conventions. The administrative work of the SCV is conducted at the national headquarters, 'Elm Springs,' a restored antebellum home at Columbia, Tennessee.
All state organizations, known as Divisions, hold annual conventions, and many publish regular newsletters to the membership dealing with statewide issues. Each Division has a corps of officers elected by the membership who coordinate the work of the encampments and the national organization.
Camp Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler #863 is a local chapter that we call an encampment of the State of Georgia Division.
Each branch produces it own form of newsletter and while the local encampments meet frequently, the State and National groups meet at least once a year for multi-day gatherings.
In order to be a full member of the SCV, you must register/belong to all three groups. This is done with your single membership application. Our Camp Adjutant will take care of the details for you.
Dues
Like most non-profit organizations, the SCV operates and pays its bills through the collection of dues, paid annually. A member's annual dues are divided up and portions are sent to the National and State offices while the remainder stays with the local encampment. Currently, the total amount of those dues are $62 paid annually.
SCV (National) operates on a fiscal year that begins on August 1st of each year and prorates its dues based on the month you join. Once again, the Camp Adjutant will be happy to explain this to you and calculate the amount of dues needed to process your application.
SCV Cadet Membership Application
SCV Lineage Chart for Applying for Membership
Friends of the SCV Membership Application
If you would like more information about us, please continue to look at our website. If you have questions you'd like to ask us, please contact our Camp Commander via this email link.
If you wish to fill out your information and then send it to use via the Postal Service, please mail your paperwork to:
Major General Joseph Wheeler
Camp 863
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Post Office Box 82718
Conyers, Georgia 30013
If you would like to know more about the SCV, please visit the SCV's web site at www.scv.org.