Time to Cut to the Chase

 

Sometimes, research plans don't work as hoped. In attempting to uncover documentation to confirm the identity of my third great-grandmother's parents, I had hoped to discover the relationship of other Townsends in the territorial Florida county where Delaney Townsend went to marry Andrew Charles in 1841. If luck was on my side and Benjamin Townsend or Allen Townsend did turn out to be Delaney's brothers, then (I reasoned) I would be one step closer to identifying the parents of any of the three of them.

That plan hasn't been working out too well for me. I did find a will for Allen Townsend, but it mentioned absolutely nothing about relatives other than his own children. With Benjamin, as we saw last Friday, I was even less fortunate, for the man died intestate—even some of his children listed in his household for the 1870 census only a couple years before his death weren't mentioned in the distribution of his estate, let alone Benjamin's siblings.

While it occurred to me that the probate judge mentioned so many times in the administration of Benjamin's estate—David Townsend—might be another sibling who moved to town from their native South Carolina, I am concerned that examining his own final documents would be an exercise that reveals little (though I am willing to try that next step). However, when the search trail grows cold and researchers find themselves meandering in circles, it's time to reach out in multiple directions. And I did—and received some helpful information.

With that, it's time to cut to the chase. I had mentioned earlier this month that there are some books written about this tentative Townsend family line from South Carolina. One of those books, now out of print, is accessible through a website online, as well as digitized on the FamilySearch website. I noticed that the first website, hosted by Joe Burval, the book's author, had been updated as recently as last October. Since it included an email address, I reached out to the author to see whether he had any additional documentation besides what he had included in his book.

Joe Burval graciously responded to my inquiry, though the news was disappointing: he has not been able to locate a will for Delaney Townsend's supposed father, John Townsend of Marlboro County, South Carolina. With that lack of evidence, we are left to assemble supporting details in a sound proof argument, if such can be found. Mr. Burval recommended I review his book to see how he approached this problem—not from the generation beginning with John Townsend, Delaney's supposed father, but from two generations preceding that—using multiple records to piece together a cogent explanation of the line of descent.

In a second email, the author added information more pertinent to my own research question. Apparently, as I had seen from other sources, there was an application for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution which contained references to certain privately held records which had been the basis for that Townsend descendant's DAR application and successful bid for membership. Indeed, looking at the NSDAR website, it is easy to see that John Townsend of South Carolina is entered as a Patriot—and easy to find the application in question with the references I needed. Anyone could easily apply to receive a copy of that application, should they need to reference it in their own membership or supplemental application.

What was contained in that DAR application was a "certified" report of entries viewed in the Townsend family Bible, listing an incredible thirteen children of John Townsend and Kesiah Hayes. At the time of this 1948 DAR application, that Townsend family Bible was owned by a Dr. P. Kinney of Bennettsville, South Carolina. And yes, my Delaney Townsend, wife of Andrew Charles, was among those listed.

Granted, I'd feel a lot better about this being the only documentation that can be found to connect Delaney to her parents if I could see it myself with my own two eyes. Who knows where that family Bible is today? But I also am incredulous that there wasn't any further paper trail mentioning any connection between those Townsend settlers in Florida and their elders back home in Marlboro County, South Carolina.

With that in mind, you know I will keep searching. There are a few mentions about family connections in that DAR application that I'd like to follow up on, and there are some stories which will need to be verified—one of which goes back to my own family's Aunt Fannie, the celebrated teller of our family's stories. Perhaps tomorrow would be a good time to review her version of the story about what became of Delaney's children after their mother's death. 

Whatever Became of Charles?

 

When it comes to delving into the dark corners of family history, some questions may never get answered. As I wander through the history of Lafayette County, Florida—home of my third great-grandmother's possible brother Benjamin Townsend—I realize there were some details gleaned from the administration of his estate following his 1872 death that still are begging for answers. The first of those questions is, whatever became of Charles Townsend?

As we saw yesterday, there was an enigmatic notation that Benjamin Townsend's son Charles had died, and that Charles' unnamed son was to share in the distribution of Benjamin's estate. I had to go back and look at the details about this son Charles.

Charles had appeared in his father's household for three enumerations before Benjamin's 1872 death. In the 1850 census, he showed up as a three year old. For the 1860 census, Charles was noted to be twelve years of age, an aberration possibly due to the differing month when each census was drawn up. I was thankful that Charles, by then twenty two years of age, was still in his parents' home for the 1870 census, but that was the last I could find of him.

After that last appearance, there was no sign of Charles. I checked in Lafayette County records for any sign of his death, or at least a token mention of a marriage, since he was survived by a young child by 1875. Nothing—at least so far, in either Lafayette County or surrounding counties.

Of course, "nothing" as a search result only means to keep on looking. And I will. If a child survived him during that time period, for any distribution of funds there surely would be an appointment of a guardian, if nothing else.

The mention of another Townsend as distribution of funds for Benjamin's estate drew to a close points me in another direction—and yet, that additional Townsend name added to the mix may provide some answers. The money to provide supplies for Benjamin's unnamed grandson, child of his deceased son Charles, was paid to someone named James Townsend.

Looking at those same census records for Benjamin's household while he was still living revealed that he also had a son named James. Possibly Benjamin's oldest son, born shortly after his marriage to Jane Suggs in 1841, James might have been the most logical choice as guardian for the child—despite no sign yet of such a court document having been drawn up. Perhaps pursuing James' story may reveal more about what became of Charles—and his unnamed son.

Piecing Together the Estate

 

When an ancestor dies intestate, the only option for those of us seeking to research his family line is to follow the details as his estate is liquidated. Granted, hundred year old inventories of belongings can make for boring reading, but if we learn to read between the lines, we can sometimes infer points about who is related to the deceased, based on their interest in what becomes of his estate.

In the case of Benjamin Townsend—whom I'm following because I suspect he was a brother of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles—I already had an idea of the names of his immediate family members from the 1870 census. That document had revealed the likelihood that Benjamin's wife Jane, whom he had married in 1841, had long since died, since the wife named in 1870 was Martha, apparent mother of the two youngest children in the census: three year old David and baby George.

As of that 1870 census, likely children from the previous marriage (or possibly more than one) included sons Charles, Benjamin, Patrick, Light, and Joseph, as well as daughter Jane. Yet, by 1872, when William Sears was appointed as administrator of Benjamin's estate and drew up the inventory of the Townsend holdings, the paltry amount remaining was itemized and proceeds distributed to the then-remaining children.

That process was completed three years after Benjamin's passing. Named in that second step (in order listed in the probate records) were his children Benjamin, Light, Jane, and Joseph, as well as minor child David. 

At this point, a confusing entry mentions minor "Charles Townsend, child." That line was followed by writing which was subsequently crossed out. The document continues with an explanation that someone named James Townsend was paid out of the proceeds of the estate "for the child of Charles Townsend, deceased, to buy cloes [sic] for the little minor which were its share of its father's state."

This, of course, brings up several questions. First, what happened to Benjamin's son Charles? When did he die? Who was his wife and mother of this child? But most of all, who was James Townsend, and why was he paid the money for Charles' orphaned child?

While questions such as these pull us farther and farther away from my stated research goal for this month—to find documentation of the parents of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend—searching for these subsequent answers may eventually lead us to a collateral line whose documentation may provide the linch pin linking all these Florida Townsends together, and point us back to their true South Carolina origin.  

In Hot Pursuit of DNA Cousins

 

It's fascinating how quickly a family tree can blossom out into a bushy creation, once we add genetic genealogy to our family history toolkit. While some people may be the ones with a tip-of-the-tongue answer to the question, "How far back have you gone," my goal in building that family tree is quite different. 

It's been years now since I first added DNA testing to my genealogical research tools—since 2014—but I still can't help but wonder, "Who are all these people?" There are thousands of matches for my tree and for the trees of extended family members I have also tested. My only solution since the shock of receiving that huge number of initial results was to grow my tree out, not up. That meant extending each branch of the tree by adding collateral lines, then tracing each generation of their descendants.

Now that I'm working on my brick wall third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend, I'm not only tearing my hair out over the lack of records connecting her to parents or even siblings, I'm using DNA to do something about this research roadblock. First, I added Delaney's assumed parents to my tree—flagging them with all the bells, whistles, and warning signs possible—then added the supposed children to the line. And then, I cut the whole bunch off from my tree, forming a Townsend "floating branch" on my tree.

Now, floating in the outer space of my family tree, each of Delaney's supposed brothers have their own line of descent added in, bit by bit, guided by the 125 DNA matches currently attributed to John Townsend of South Carolina, Delaney's alleged father. As I find possible brothers for Delaney from this list—especially the ones living in the same county in Florida as she did following her 1841 marriage in Madison County there—I pull together documentation to trace their lines forward in time.

This, of course, is the likely explanation for how I managed to add 346 more names to my tree in the last two weeks. Yes, it's been a busy time adding possible nieces and nephews for Delaney. Tracing each of their descendants has so far grown that tree to 39,480 people—and there's more "bushiness" to come.

As I keep up this pace, the count has increased in the past two weeks by a few additional matches credited to the ThruLines readout for this Townsend line—no surprise, since I now have 2,615 DNA matches at Ancestry.com, and more at the other major testing companies, too.

It will take quite a bit of time for me to confirm with documentation the DNA connection between these Townsend descendants and myself. After all, we're talking about 125 matches flagged as Townsend connections. But if the paperwork looks good for a majority of them, that may give me something positive to consider about the true identity of Delaney's missing parents.

We All Need a Charlie in Our Corner

 

During this month, while I've been pursuing the challenge of identifying my Townsend fourth great-grandparents, a steady stream of emails has been going back and forth between me and a fellow genea-blogger. Charlie Purvis of Carolina Family Roots has been sending me links of material he's found—on my Townsend ancestors. And I'm sending back links of what I've found, based on what he discovered. It's been an ongoing dialog as I work my way towards a well-substantiated answer to my question, "Who were the parents of Delaney Townsend Charles?"

We all need a Charlie in our corner when we are struggling with research problems. Even though technology has streamlined family history research to an incredibly amazing degree—with more developments and resources to come—our own two eyes cannot be everywhere, all at once. With the billions upon billions of digitized document pages coming online (or still behind paywalls in private collections), we can hone our skills and specialize in one area. But we can't know it all.

That's where crowdsourcing the answers comes in. And I am hoping that we'll see a swing back towards cooperative group effort in finding the specific resources each one of us needs. 

When the online genealogy giants came into being and we all swooned to think how much of our sleuthing could be done at home—pajamas, bunny slippers and cup of hot chocolate in hand—the unintentional corollary was a move away from group effort toward individual pursuit. We could find almost anything (perhaps with the right subscription) at any time of day or night. Who needed help?!

At first, we saw vestiges of the old genealogical queries—think Everton's Genealogical Helper on steroids—translated into digital form on sites like Genealogy.com or RootsWeb. Those, however, eventually atrophied from (presumable) lack of use, or due to prohibitive operating costs for what had been envisioned as a nonprofit volunteer effort. We lost our way to talk with each other about the families we were seeking.

I've been lately encouraged, in our local genealogical society efforts, by the response to the invitation to just come together to "talk genealogy." No agenda, no special speaker—just talk about where our research has taken us lately, and where we are stuck. An easy time to share notes, great resources, unexpected discoveries, that is something we do now, once a month. Special Interest Groups are like that, too: a way for smaller groups to exchange information on a specific research focus.

Connecting one on one, though, has super-charged the effort. Of course, it helps to write a blog, where others can put their surnames in a search engine and discover a link to just the blog post they need. Blogger Patrick Jones of Frequent Traveler Ancestry and I connected on our mutual Carter roots, initiating a volley of emails between us, full of useful resources, when I was researching the puzzles in that line.

Blogging is not the only way to connect with other researchers, thankfully—though posting a comment on a key blog entry you've found can help, even if you don't write your own blog. There are other ways to connect with fellow researchers and become the kind of research partner who supercharges progress for others. This month, our local genealogical society will be featuring a speaker on using family history groups on Facebook and other social media to connect with those distant cousins we all wish we could find. I love this speaker's subtitle: "Even if you hate Facebook." Yes, I'm in that camp, too—but I've encountered some wonderful people (and unbelievable results) by venturing into that social media corner.

Back during those early years of online genealogy—I'm talking 1990s here, when they only had wood-burning computers—I met a wonderful researcher who shared roots with my mother-in-law's Gordon line. She was a semi-retired professor of history at a key university, and liked to use her summer breaks for road trips to research those Gordon roots. We struck up an online conversation that lasted for years, until debilitating health got the best of her and eventually claimed her life. 

Thankfully, I am now seeing signs on the horizon that we are beginning to emerge from our genea-caves to connect with other researchers and share resources as a sort of ongoing conversation. Whether we are doing so in person or via online connections, the important part is: work together on the research problems that have us stuck. Find someone who is languishing on the same family line and offer help, either as a "Giving Back" approach in thanks for all that others did to help us when we got started, or a "paying it forward" gesture, knowing well that we'll hit more rough patches in our future research. Teamwork can supercharge our progress.   

No Will — But Still a Way

 

Just when I was hoping to close in on a will for Benjamin Townsend, possible brother of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles, I pull up a record which promptly dashes my hopes. From the court records of Lafayette County, Florida, where Benjamin's family returned to live after leaving Alachua County, I find this entry from June of 1872:

Whereas Benjamin Townsend as is alleged died Intestant having whilst liv[ing] and at the time of his death goods Chattels rights and credits within the said County to the end therefore that the said goods Chattels rights and credits of the said deceased may be well and faithfully administered....

With that explanation, the probate judge for Lafayette County appointed William D. Sears as administrator of the estate of Benjamin Townsend. Thus began my search for records of the proceedings of that business.

Frustratingly—and, I might add, something to have quickly taken as an omen of what was yet to come—the very page upon which that appointment was noted was interrupted by a torn section of the record. Looking further for any mention of what became of Benjamin Townsend's property—not to mention, his family—I discovered one page in the Lafayette County records which included what looked like Civil War era cross-writing, making the deciphering process all the more difficult. 

That page included a record of the names of some of the children of the deceased Benjamin Townsend. What is interesting is that the name of the presiding judge in this case also happened to be Townsend—David R. Townsend. Another brother? I'll add him to my growing list of Townsends who moved from South Carolina to this northern region of Florida, after continuing my process of muddling through the probate file for Benjamin Townsend, late of Lafayette County.

Tracing a Presumed Brother

 

Sometimes, we end up chasing records regarding people whom we can only presume are our ancestral kin. In the case of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend, that is exactly my lot for this month.

Despite finding a will for Allen Townsend in the records of the same county where we found Delaney—Madison County, Florida—the details of that last testament revealed no clues about Allen's siblings or parents. Nothing concerning the witnesses even helped. Nor have I yet been able to find an obituary for his 1880 passing. However, at least the naming of his several children—including married names for his daughters—helped me sketch out the lines of descent which proved helpful in finding connections with several of my DNA matches.

Moving on to the other Townsend men who arrived in northern Florida about the same time as Delaney did, my next goal is to look up the will for Benjamin Townsend.

While Allen Townsend was born in 1801, Benjamin proved to be a bit younger. While we've already seen that he married in Madison County, the same place—and in the same year—where Delaney married in 1841, he apparently chose not to remain there for long. While Benjamin and his bride, the former Jane Suggs, were apparently there in Madison County for the 1850 census, along with their four children and a twenty three year old young man named Noah Suggs from Georgia—same birthplace as Jane—by 1860, the family had moved to Alachua County. Again, in 1870, the family had moved—this time, to Lafayette County, possibly following Jane's death.

Looking quickly for General Land Office records through the Bureau of Land Management, Benjamin's name turns up in both Madison County and Lafayette County, although not in Alachua County. After the 1870 census, though, the trail goes cold on records for Benjamin Townsend—including any sign of a will. There were, however, other documents to consider in trying to piece together the story of these Townsends in Florida and their possible sibling relationships. It's just that the path forward becomes a bit more messy—and a lot harder to read.