Make a List, Check it Twice

 

Having made a list of all the records where I found mention of my second great-grandfather, it's time to check it again. Whether the man was named Alexander Booth or William Alexander Boothe (as one researcher had electronically published far and wide), I still can't say. But it's time to go back through all the records in which he appeared, and check them twice for the precise detail on his name.

This can be tedious work—the kind that, towards the end, may have us kicking ourselves for not being as thorough the first time around. (I'm not to that stage yet, though this ancestor has been a brick wall stopping research progress for far longer than I'd like.)

We've already reviewed Mr. Booth's cameo appearance in each of the census records from 1840 until his supposed death in 1895 and, excepting the missing 1890 census, the name always showed as Alexander Booth—no William in sight.

The next task was to go back and check the death record for each of his children to see what their bereaved relatives reported about the decedent's father's name. This was no small task, considering our man had at least two children with his first—and unknown—wife, plus eleven (at least) children with his second wife Rachel T. Riley.

Had I been able to track down an actual death certificate for either of those first two sons, I would have been rewarded not only with information on Alexander's true identity, but also with the name of their long-gone mother. No such luck, though, for eldest son Quinton died in Texas at the beginning of the year of 1908, perhaps before the more modern format for death certificates was instituted in that state. Quinton's younger brother David likely died before that point, possibly in 1899, though I have yet to complete my search for his death record.

However, moving on to Rachel Riley's Booth children, there were many opportunities to receive the same answer. Beginning with the eldest child, their daughter Laura Caroline, all the way to the youngest of the Booth children I could find—daughter Charlotte Rachel—the entry for the deceased's father was basically the same. It was either Alexander Booth or Alex Booth. Sometimes the surname was spelled with the flourish of a final "e"—Boothe—but other than that, no surprises.

In that trek through the Booth children's own death records, the farthest the standard answer varied was for son Leroy Burton Booth's death certificate, for whom his brother James was the informant, in which the father was listed as "Alec Booth."

There were, however, a couple hiccups in that thorough search. In one case, for daughter Mary, who died in Virginia in 1948, the informant was her son-in-law, Charles Smith, who reported that Mary's father was named John Booth and that he was born in Scotland. In another instance, for son Charles, the section on parents' names and places of birth was left entirely blank—as was the entry space designated for the name and address of the informant. Looking more closely, though, I spotted the cause of death—"railroad accidents causing scalds of almost entire body"—which might be considered a justifiable omission.

Overwhelmingly, the evidence pointed to the man's name not being William. For now, I'll proceed by forsaking that other name and stick with Alexander Booth.

This process of checking every detail, every document, once again has fingered one detail: if there was anything else we could find about those first two sons, the children of Alexander's first wife, perhaps that would lead to some solid guidance back to Virginia—and to some collateral Booth lines.

The Story, as Once was Told to Me

 

Sometimes, those family stories are just that: stories. We can't, however, simply dismiss them out of hand. As with so many such instances, a family story may contain a kernel of truth. It's up to us as family historians to determine which part is the right one to pursue.

So it is with the instance of this month's focus for my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for 2025. I am beginning to wonder if the story told to me was not entirely verifiable truth. The information was told to me years ago by my mother's second cousin—a fairly close relative, granted, though one I had never known in person—so we could presume it was accurate. Before we make any judgments about its reliability, though, let's take a few minutes to consider the story, as it once was told to me by this distant cousin.

According to the story, William Alexander Boothe—for that was the name this researcher insisted was the man's correct and full name—was born in Nansemond County, Virginia, about 1812. Unknown were his parents, as far as this researcher could tell, as well as the identity of any siblings.

This William was supposedly married to a woman whose name, also, was unknown. The implication was that the marriage took place in Virginia—but again, no documentation.

At some point—perhaps after the birth of a child—the unfortunate, and unnamed, wife died, leaving William Alexander Boothe with the task of raising two young children. A most reasonable solution for such a predicament would be to stay close to family, where grandmothers or aunts could fill in as surrogate mothers until the children's bereaved father could win another bride.

In this William's case, though, his answer was to uproot his two young sons, leave everything behind in Virginia and move to the sparsely-settled region of northeastern Tennessee, where he remained until his dying days.

The backstory to all this drama, according to my cousin, was that William was not too wise with financial matters, perhaps—here's the conjecture—having been tempted by the purchases of fancy race horses. No matter what lured William into this supposed debt, his resolution was basically to do the nineteenth century version of skipping town. And thus...Tennessee.

Was that really what happened? I've tried to find documentation to shed light on any portion of that saga. With the exception of finding someone named Alexander Boothe—note the lack of any "William"—in the 1840 census in Nansemond County, I have so far been unsuccessful in replicating that story.

While I'll always keep that saga in mind—remember, family lore can sometimes contain an element of truth—I may as well start from the beginning and see if the paper trail leads me to a different tale.

Re-Start With What you Know

 

If one of the guiding principles of genealogy is to start with what you know, then when we find ourselves stuck, perhaps the corollary should be to re-start with what we know. This month, in puzzling over my brick wall second great-grandfather, that is exactly how I need to get started.

I'll give you an example right off the bat. I had always thought this man's name was William Alexander Boothe. Why? Because years ago, when I first started working on my maternal grandfather's roots, I had found information on a man named Alexander Boothe. Not much, mind you, but at least the bare essentials.

Back then, there was no access to FamilySearch.org, let alone all the powerhouse research resources we have now—but there was an active community of researchers reaching out to each other via email, "listservs" and, eventually, online forums. From such resources, I discovered there was a man who not only was actively pursuing this same second great-grandfather, but online, he was prolific in his sharing of what he had found about the man. I connected with him by email, then eventually by telephone, and learned quite a bit about what he had discovered about our mutual ancestor.

There was, however, one problem: this researcher insisted the ancestor's name was not simply Alexander Boothe, but William Alexander Boothe. His influence was apparently quite widespread. Now, I can find many trees mentioning that given name in combination with the Alexander I saw—without supporting documentation.

Now that I look back over every document I've found to support what I know about this second great-grandfather, I'm realizing one glaring omission. You guessed it: no mention of the given name William in any of those records. Could chasing William have been the rabbit trail which caused that left turn I missed in Albuquerque? 

Take, for example, this run of census records. In 1880, shown with his wife Rachel and eight of their children (including my great-grandmother Cassie), the head of the Boothe household was listed by the name Alexander. Same goes for the 1870 census. You might get a sense of something happening here by the time we check the 1860 census, and feel more of a certainty about the man's name when we press back, even before his marriage to Rachel Riley in 1854, to the 1850 census, where Alexander was enumerated along with his two eldest sons, Quinton and David, still in Washington County, Tennessee.

In each of those enumerations, Alexander was listed—consistently—as having been born in Virginia, not Tennessee. Checking—just in case I could find something—there was someone named Alexander Boothe in the 1840 census in the now-nonexistent Nansemond County, Virginia, being of the approximate age indicated in subsequent enumerations, along with a wife and child under five years of age. Our Alexander? Hard to tell, but the ages and scenario seem to fit.

What's missing in each of those records was any sign of a given name William. Perhaps, as we start off this month looking for my brick wall second great-grandfather, we should agree to stick with a search for Alexander, and set aside any notion of a man named William Boothe. After all, with a surname as common as that, following the wrong given name might lead us far from the person we're seeking.

A New Month, a New Challenge

Some months, my research candidate for my Twelve Most Wanted brings me lots of work—and, if I'm fortunate, plenty of new DNA cousins in the process. For March, however, we won't be chasing the 124 DNA matches I garnered for last month's Townsend project; for this month's project, I'll be lucky to add twenty five new matches.

Those serendipitous chases can certainly up my count on my very "bushy" family tree, full of collateral lines and all their descendants. In just the last two weeks, for instance, working on the Townsend problem added 491 new entries to my family tree. My tree is now hovering near the 40,000 mark: 39,971 individuals, to be exact.

This month? Don't count on such progress. The ancestor I'm seeking in March is my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe. Deciding whether his surname was really spelled Boothe, or the more common Booth—his descendants seemed to alternate between the two—is only a small part of the question. And a few researchers' insistence that his given name was William doesn't seem to have documentation to support it—so add that little detail to the task list for March. 

However, what I really need to know about the man is his early history. Sure, he showed up in Tennessee before 1850, a widower with two young sons in tow—but who was the wife he had buried? More to the point: who were his parents? That he came from Virginia can be clearly seen by his consistent reports in each of the decennial enumerations conducted while he lived in Tennessee. But I have yet to find the identity of his parents.

That is my goal for this month: find my second great-grandfather's Boothe forebears. Now that I've found so many other answers through FamilySearch.org Labs' Full Text search tool, I'm hoping that resource will lead me to some verifiable answers in this Boothe question. And there certainly is a need for verification. If I look to one publicly available universal family tree, there are assertions about his parents' names. Problem: if I look to Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool, there is a suggestion that his parents' names represent an entirely different couple. And where is the documentation? At this point, I'm wondering whether it will even be possible to determine which answer is correct—or if another set of parents would be the true identity.

Tomorrow, we'll start with what we already know about this Boothe second great-grandfather. This would also be a good time to evaluate a few assertions that have been made by other researchers about the man. Wrong assumptions can lead us down a very different research path, so we may as well start not only with what we know to be correct, but with what we can see might be incorrect, as well.  

Not Out of the Hat

 

The trouble with planning research goals months in advance is that, once the time arrives to do so, we can't just magically pull a genealogical rabbit out of the hat. Sticky research problems that had me stumped last December, when I was outlining plans for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025, are still just as sticky as they were back then. Sure, I'm optimistic about what new tech tools can do for document retrieval, but if the documents were never digitized—or worse, destroyed by some catastrophe—fancier tools simply will not produce documents which were never there.

Learning that other researchers have not been able to locate a will for John Townsend, presumed father of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend, has been a discouragement. Trying to trace the collateral lines of Delaney's possible family has not proven successful, as far as documentation is concerned. While a descendant of one sibling did apply for membership in the DAR using, among other records, a family Bible, the record was transcribed into the application; there is no actual photocopy of the original record. Keeping in mind that there were at least three Delaney Townsends that I've run across, it would be more reassuring to see the Bible entry itself.

There is, however, one other method to provide a bit more confidence: those 124 DNA matches I'm still reviewing. At this point, I've followed lines of six of the possible siblings of my Delaney to confirm records linking my DNA matches to their ancestral Townsend. While some appear to have documentation problems, most of the matches do line up. But this is not a quick fix to the original problem of having no document to tie all those siblings to the same parents.

And yet, the month is over. With the coming of March, we'll be moving from South Carolina and Florida to mull over another ancestral line with missing documentation, this time in Virginia. We'll meet William Alexander Boothe tomorrow, but for now, wrapping up the question about Delaney could use a to-do list for the next time I revisit her research problem.

First off, finishing the confirmation of each of those DNA matches would help. It's encouraging to see at least one way to demonstrate family connection to this Townsend line. I'm not sure what percentage of successful matches would satisfy my doubt, but if at least fifty percent of the descendants of each presumed Townsend sibling could be confirmed, I'd feel a little less tentative about the connection.

In addition, completing the process of looking at last wills and other documents at each sibling's passing in hopes of finding a sibling identified would be my next step. While the oldest of the presumed Townsends, born in the late 1700s, would not have an obituary written in their honor complete with names of surviving siblings, perhaps among the youngest members of the family, such a remembrance could be found. And looking for signs in wills—such as witnesses to the document or naming of executors—might reveal a brotherly connection.

As I've already witnessed, moving from last year until now, technology has made so many more records accessible and quickly retrievable. It is doubtful I would have found the estate sale inventory for Delaney or the guardianship appointment for her orphaned children without the help of FamilySearch.org Labs' Full Text search. Who knows what tools will be available to us in another couple years?

For now, we'll bid goodbye to my mystery third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend Charles, and all the question I have about whatever became of her. It's time to look at the early life of a second great-grandfather, William Alexander Boothe. Born in 1812 in a now-nonexistent county in Virginia, by 1850 he had lost his wife and moved with his two young sons to a new life—and a new wife—in Tennessee. My task this month will be to see if I can rewind history to uncover documents about those earlier days back in Virginia. My hope is that, even if I can't pull those documents magically out of the hat, so to speak, I'll find a clear research path forward towards discovery.

Time for a Timeline

 

When the detail on a family's situation becomes too messy, perhaps it is time to outline it all in a timeline.  Based on the suggestion—and even that only from a letter written long afterwards by Aunt Fannie—that Light Townsend had traveled down to Florida to help his orphaned nieces, I wanted to see whether I could find any possibility of pinpointing that connection.

In the process—warning: a messy one!—I came to the conclusion that just looking at each individual's circumstances wasn't enough. I needed to blend eight people's timelines into one, so that I could spot any gaps which might be a reasonable time for Light Townsend to travel from his home in Marlboro County, South Carolina, to Madison County in northern Florida.

The brief answer: I don't see how. But let's first look at the particulars. To begin with, here are the players:

Light Townsend, born in South Carolina about 1798, who was the supposed brother of my third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend. Delaney, in turn, while born in South Carolina much later than Light—about 1816—traveled to territorial Florida to marry Andrew Charles in 1841. After the couple's unexpected demise, Andrew's sister, Drucilla Charles, took up the responsibility of serving as guardian for the three orphaned children of Delaney and Andrew, before her marriage to, first, Thomas Hughs Hines, and then Melburn Odum—with each of whom she bore children. It was the two daughters, Frances Charles and Emily (or Emma) Charles, who supposedly traveled back to South Carolina with Light Townsend.

Now, how does all this fit in a timeline? Answer: it's a squeeze.

Let's start off with the 1850 census. Andrew and Delaney were shown in their household with their son and their two daughters, four year old Fanny and one year old Emma. What's interesting about this enumeration is that it was taken on October 16, after Andrew's death, but he was still listed as if alive, on account of the instructions to list the households as they would have appeared on June first of that same year.

In 1850, Light Townsend was at home in Marlboro County, South Carolina, with his wife, four children, and his mother. Drucilla Charles was still living with her mother and siblings in Florida, this being two years before her mother's tragic death, and before her own marriage.

The cascade of events begins with Andrew Charles' apparently unexpected illness and death in July of 1850. Sometime between that point and February of 1852, Delaney herself dies (although I have yet to find any record of that date).

In 1852, Frances, older of the two Charles daughters, would have been about six years of age. Her younger sister Emma, my second great-grandmother, would have been three, having lost her father while still an infant. On February 28 of that year, Andrew's sister Drucilla Charles was appointed guardian of the three orphans, Fanny, Emma, and their brother Rupert Charles. On May 22 of that same year, Drucilla became the wife of Thomas H. Hines, and eventually had two daughters, while presumably continuing to serve as guardian for the Charles orphans.

Sometime between 1857 and 1859, Drucilla's husband Thomas Hines died. This might have been a reasonable time to call in help from the other side of the orphans' family, but in 1858, Light Townsend was having his own woes: his wife died, leaving him with two young daughters of his own. While before this point, it might have made sense for Light to blend the two families—Emma Charles was the same age as Light's daughter Mary Ann, and Light's daughter Amelia was two years older than Fanny Charles—after his wife's death was no time to go traveling long distances through remote regions to help another family. 

Thus, by the 1860 census, it was no surprise to find Light still in South Carolina with his dwindling family, and the Charles orphans with Drucilla, who, widowed, had by then married Melburn Odum and welcomed in their baby daughter Maybelle. 

The years following the 1860 census might seem like the ideal opportunity for Light to travel to Florida, particularly considering the more appropriate ages of his nieces for such an adventure back to South Carolina with him. In 1860, Fanny would have turned fourteen and Emma eleven. But even then, the timeline shoved roadblocks in the way of such a plan—not to mention, a ravaging war.

After the death of her mother, Light's daughter Amelia married in 1863. Light's younger daughter Mary Ann married William Kinney in 1867, becoming the progenitor of the DAR applicant whose mention of Aunt Fannie's letter got me wondering about all this in the first place. And Mary Ann's cousin Emma Charles was herself married by 1867.

Sandwiched in between these joyful moments in the family's timeline were other disruptions. While I have yet to find Drucilla's second husband's date of death, by March of 1866, it was clear that both Melburn Odum and his wife Drucilla had passed. Drucilla, following the path of her intestant brother before her, died leaving no will. Another Charles sister, widow Mary Ann McLeran, was appointed as administratrix of Drucilla's property in March of 1866 and eventually—by 1872—that sad task finally drew to an official close.

Following Drucilla's passing by 1866, the final player in this drama was Light Townsend himself, who died in South Carolina in March of 1870.

While there were a few celebratory moments in this whirlwind of less happy events, the time it would have taken to make such a round trip—in that time period and with the constraints of their current forms of transportation—make it doubtful that an aging Light Townsend would have made such a trip. Possibly in the earliest years after the loss of Delaney and her husband, Light might have come to lend a financial or organizational hand—but it would have been unlikely that he'd return home with two very young nieces at that point.

That, however, still leaves me with a predicament: I've yet to find any verifiable written documentation to tie my third great-grandmother to her parents, or even to her siblings. But that is written documentation. As we leave this month's focus to move toward the next of my Twelve Most Wanted research goals for 2025, let's use the weekend to determine what we gained, what we still need, and what other verification has now become available to researchers in situations like this.

Just a Blip on the (Genealogical) Radar

 

One look at the calendar tells me this month is almost over, but I've yet quite a bit more work to do before I attain my goal of documenting the parents of my third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend Charles. While this Townsend-Charles search deserves far more time and attention, I did find one tiny speck of interest. Let's just call it a blip on the genealogical radar screen.

Searching through millions of pages of digitized records can be, on the one hand, a breeze compared to the research drudgery endured pre-computers. On the other hand, the sheer volume of searchable material sometimes yields a hit or miss experience. I have run across so many documents in one sitting and, having made a mental note to go back to one or two key pieces while working on multiple others, I've subsequently been unable to replicate the online search result—even when using the same search terms. Frustrating, to say the least. This has been a month that has seen more than one time I could have kicked myself.

One such time was when I ran across a court record cataloguing some detail about the estate of Delaney Charles. Like her husband before her, apparently Delaney passed without having drawn up any legal document to protect the interests of her three minor children—but when was the question. On one marathon day of searching, I found several documents on this whole Charles family question—but apparently didn't save each of the links to trace my way back to those sources. And could I replicate those searches? No.

Until now, that is—at least for a couple of them. It may be possible that Delaney and her husband Andrew died within a time frame in which the probate judge appointed an administrator to handle the two cases as one. In one court record on the sale of inventory, Andrew Charles' listing is entered directly across the page from Delaney's—and both possibly entered into the record on the same date (Andrew's entry gives the date as "on the first Monday in April, 1852, while Delaney's entry is dated as "Monday the fifth day of April").

In that record of numbered vouchers, showing cash paid for specific items of the estate, Andrew's inventory mentioned someone named B. I. Townsend—likely Benjamin Townsend. Allen Townsend was also included in that list. Under the entry for Delaney's personal estate, Allen Townsend's name appeared again, as well as the name Temperance Townsend. (The only Temperance I have found so far was Allen's granddaughter. The only problem with that identity is that Allen's granddaughter was not born until 1855.)

Granted, there were several other names also mentioned in that list provided by Theo Hartridge, administrator of the Charles estate. I'm not meaning to imply that by virtue of being included in the list, these people were family—but they knew enough to come by and acquire some of the property being sold from the estate.

Another court record gave more detail as to what was being sold. "A. Townsend"—presumably Allen—purchased one "lot crockery," an oven pot and kettle, and a side saddle. Another Townsend—first initial "W"?—bought a chicken. The whole of Delaney's person estate netted less than one hundred dollars, not much when you consider the court's observation that her three minor children were about to inherit a "considerable estate."

While we can't outright assert that any of the Townsend customers at the Charles estate sale were kin to Delaney, one thing is obvious by this exploration: there was absolutely no mention of Light Townsend, the knight in shining armor who supposedly swooped down from his estate in South Carolina to rescue his poor orphaned nieces in Florida.

There is still one additional way we can explore that assertion about Delaney's possible brother Light. We'll consider that as we wrap up this second of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for this year.

Taking a Different Approach

 

The beauty of an ancestral search comes when we realize there are more ways than one to find answers to our questions. When one research plan doesn't yield results, it's time to take a different approach.

In the case of my third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend Charles, I knew she had died young, as a widow, leaving three orphans. While my overarching goal is to determine who her parents were, a clue from a DAR application implied that after Delaney's death, a brother by the name of Light Townsend had come down to Florida to bring his nieces back home to South Carolina with him. Right now, I'm chasing after any record that could confirm that relationship. After all, the father of Light Townsend would also be the father of Delaney. Thus, the search is now on to verify exactly who was appointed guardian of the three Charles children in Madison County, Florida, just in case I can find any mention of Light Townsend's involvement with the Charles family.

Prior searches for these details had not been successful—but when I realized that guardianship proceedings should mention the names of the children, I switched tactics to search by the name of the children rather than the name of the deceased parents. However, looking for my second great-grandmother Emma, or even her sister Frances, left me searching for very common names, but when I switched to look for their older brother's name—Rupert Charles, for whom my great-grandfather was named—the search engines were more rewarding.

Because we had found a death notice for Delaney's husband, Andrew Charles, in the July 27, 1850, Floridian and Journal, I knew my earliest search parameter would be that same year: 1850. Unsure of his wife Delaney's year of death, I expanded my search parameters to 1860, just in case—though some probate information, which we'll view tomorrow, narrowed that date range considerably.

Taking my new research query to the FamilySearch Labs website, I had my answer in no time, thanks to the Full Text search option. And it surprised me. While I didn't expect to see Light Townsend named—after all, the three Charles children were living with their paternal aunt in the 1860 census—I was surprised about the details given in the letter appointing the guardian.

Dated February 28 of 1852, the communication from the probate court of Madison County to "Drusilla" was actually addressed to her maiden name, Charles, rather than her married name. Naming the three orphans and explaining that they were "possessed in their own right of a Considerable Estate," the court designated Drucilla as guardian to secure the estate and oversee the maintenance and education of the three Charles children.

That prompted one question: where was Drucilla's husband, Thomas Hughes Hines? A quick check revealed that while the couple married in that same year—1852—the event was not official until May 22, 1852. So when the guardianship papers were drawn up, Drucilla was indeed still known by her maiden name.

While I was surprised, considering that time period, to see a woman named as guardian, it was quite obvious that she was not in the legal process alone. Posting bond for six thousand dollars, two additional men were named. Thanks to the abysmal handwriting of the clerk noting the transaction, these guesses at their names may not be accurately deciphered, but best I can tell, they were Michael McLeary and Charles Rupell—neither of whom were familiar names from family connections.

One point, though, was clear: none of those names listed was Townsend. Despite that discovery, though, there are other court records to peruse for any sign of Townsends. We'll linger a bit longer tomorrow to see whether anything else might be found.

Looking at Light's Will

 

Sometimes, unfinished business may be mentioned—and wrapped up—in a person's last testament. In that hope, my first stop in pursuing the records of Light Townsend was to look at his will. While I didn't expect to see any mention of his possible role in assisting his deceased sister Delaney Townsend Charles' orphaned children, I couldn't exactly not take a thorough look. After all, if he did, as Aunt Fannie's story indicated, travel from South Carolina to Florida to offer help to his nieces and nephew, surely there would be a mention of that connection at some point.

Not in Light Townsend's 1869 will, however. Though the man's will revealed the extent of his property—and gives us an idea of the amount of success he enjoyed during his life—there was no mention of any connections to Townsend kin who might have left South Carolina for greener pastures in northern Florida.

Named in Light Townsend's will were three daughters and a son, the youngest of his children. Perhaps owing to Light's thorough nature, each of his daughters' husbands were also listed by name. His will listed, first, his daughter Amelia, wife of Thomas E. Dudley, followed by Harriet, wife of John B. Irby, and finally, Mary Ann, wife of William F. Kinney. His son, John R. Townsend, was to be appointed executor of his will—"when he attains the age of twenty one years"—along with his three sons-in-law. With no mention of his wife, we can assume that the former Mary Ann Carloss had already passed—apparently, by 1858.

As for Light Townsend, himself, his will was presented in court in Marlboro County on March 26, 1870, a little over a year after he had signed it. That there was no mention of any connection with Townsends in Florida is not a surprise, but seeking that information was a step that needed to be taken. Thanks to the mention of the Townsend daughters' husbands, the name William F. Kinney reminds me that it was a Kinney descendant who had included mention of Aunt Fannie's letter in her DAR application—the closest sign of corroboration yet.

Though the Townsend will itself didn't reveal any extended family connections, there is still plenty of room to look further. Let's take some time to do so tomorrow with a different approach.

Finding the Guardian

 

Sometimes, we have to come to the conclusion that stories about our family's history may not necessarily be the way things really were. Regarding the mention last week of Aunt Fannie's story about her orphaned mother, it is fairly easy to look through documents to piece together the actual situation. Family stories passed down through the generations can sometimes be just that: stories.

On the other hand, the possibility that my third great-grandmother's brother traveled from South Carolina to attend to the needs of his orphaned nieces—and nephew, one would presume—could be a reasonable expectation. Judging from some reports of Light Townsend's land holdings in Marlboro County, South Carolina, he might have been the most logical relative to extend a helping hand. (Not to mention, if that were so, surely there would be some documentation drawn up that would help confirm the family relationship.)

What happened to the children of Delaney Townsend and her husband Andrew J. Charles after their unexpected passing can be easily seen through census records in the following decade. Rupert Charles and his sisters Fanny and Emma were listed in the 1860 household of Melburn L. Odum in New River County, Florida.

That, however, only begins to provide the explanation. To see the family connection requires a bit more digging. Melburn's wife Drucilla was actually Andrew Charles' sister. As can be deduced by the surname of two other children in the Odum household, Drucilla had been previously married to a man named Hines. Indeed, we can now see the marriage license for Thomas Hughes Hines and Drucilla Charles was returned dated May 11, 1852, in Madison County.

It was apparently Thomas Hughes Hines who was originally appointed guardian for the orphaned children of his brother-in-law Andrew Charles. Thanks to a comment from reader Kathy Duncan of Porch Swings, Fireflies, and Jelly Jars, we can see the slightest mentions in the probate records for the Charles estate, dated October 19 of 1854 and again in early January 1855, referring to payments to "T. H. Hines, guardian."

So why the letter from Aunt Fannie, stating that Light Townsend traveled from South Carolina to Florida to take care of his orphaned nieces? Let's see if we can find any record from Light Townsend's side of the story that would mention a connection to Delaney Townsend Charles' family.

A Mayflower Detour

 

For my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors to research in 2025, the month of February has had one solitary focus: find Delaney Townsend's parents. More than that: find them documented in records, either in her native South Carolina, or in Florida, where she and apparent relatives moved well before 1840. Let's just say I've been riveted to that goal for the entire month—until this weekend, that is.

Weekends are good for setting aside tasks and taking a break, and that is exactly what happened. I'm about to take a detour to research some Mayflower connections. With a text from across the country, my niece informed me that she thinks it is a go for us to apply for membership in the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.

For quite some time, I've known that our family should be eligible to apply. The crux of the matter, however, is whether we can come up with adequate documentation to prove our line of descent from John Aldrich and Priscilla Mullins. The sticking point comes when my fifth great-grandfather William Tilson moved from Massachusetts to the southwestern region of colonial Virginia. While there are some tax records and transcriptions of old land records still accessible, there is precious little else that can be found on this family until the line resurfaces in northeastern Tennessee at the beginning of the 1800s.

In a development which would make any genealogist glad to hear, my niece decided to take the initiative to explore what could be done about that paperwork stalemate. She reached out to the Historian in her state's chapter of the Society, with initial paperwork in hand, having gleaned the names and dates from my tree, to see whether this representative thought our application might work. The key was whether anyone else from this line had already presented acceptable research.

Thankfully, there was one applicant from nearly ten years ago who had submitted documentation on this line. I suspect it was a specific third cousin—only genealogists would know these connections—with whom I had been in contact years ago, who I knew had also applied to the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Now, bit by bit, we're forming a multi-generational team to complete our applications. While it will be great to finally be able to complete the process and add our line to the official record, what is even more encouraging is to see the next generation becoming fascinated with all the family stories which years ago had beguiled me into taking a closer look at my family's history.

Seeking the Rest of the Story

 

Sometimes, when running in circles trying to find documentation to verify family connections, it becomes wearying—enough to give it up. That's about the state I've been in as we close in on the end of this month, trying to locate the Townsend connection between my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles in Florida and her kin back home in South Carolina. No matter which other Townsend neighbor in Madison County or Lafayette County, Florida, I try to follow, I can't find any record with even as simple a comment as, "my brother" or "my cousin" to connect him back to his roots in South Carolina.

This is when I wish I could learn "The Rest of the Story," as Paul Harvey used to call it—until I realized that there is a way to know the rest of the Townsend story. That one way is through the tales told in our DNA.

It helps to go back to the other side of a story to get the full picture of what really happened. While I'll still scour the available digitized documents in both Florida and South Carolina, in the background this month, I've also been working my way through well over one hundred DNA matches sharing a Townsend ancestral connection with me.

I've already gone step by step through the descendants of Allen Townsend and Benjamin Townsend—both the Townsend man who wrote down the specifics of his last wishes, and the Townsend man who died without leaving a will. I've already confirmed the documentation connecting my twelve matches who descend from Allen Townsend, and six of the nine matches I have who descend from Benjamin Townsend, according to the ThruLines tool at Ancestry.com. Because I've seen the name David Townsend on so many probate documents during this search, I also decided to check the thirteen matches I have with that line—so far, four of those also line up.

I'll keep working on the newest Townsend line I've found—that of Light Townsend, who remained in South Carolina. I wouldn't be surprised if, in lieu of documentation, genetics will bear out the tale there, as well.

At some point, my skeptic self will have to acknowledge, paperwork or not, that there is some connection between all these Townsends supposedly descended from John Townsend and Keziah Hayes of South Carolina. And that will have to suffice as my "rest of the story" for this month's research challenge.

But you know I will keep on searching for that missing document. Wherever it is. After all, according to family tradition, there are several more Townsend siblings to go.

Shedding Some Light on Light Townsend

 

If the orphaned daughters of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles ended up leaving their home in Florida to live in South Carolina with someone named Light Townsend as Aunt Fannie's story claimed, it would seem reasonable to discover exactly who such a person was. Orphaned or not, those two girls must have had some family members left with a vested interest in their wellbeing. Even if not, there should be some legal record of who would assume responsibility for the ongoing care of those minors.

The name Light is not one often seen—certainly not now, and in my experience, not a given name I've seen from previous centuries. The rarity of a name can sometimes become a blessing to the stumped researcher, and it was not hard to find information on someone named Light Townsend in Marlboro County, South Carolina, who died there in 1870.

That Light Townsend may well have been the one from the 1850 census, still in Marlboro County, who had in his household a possible wife, four children, and an eighty year old woman named Keziah who likely was his mother. Though the family composition changed slightly by the time of the 1860 census—gone were the eighty year old mother and the possible wife, though a nine year old boy named John R. Townsend was added—judging from the value of Light Townsend's property, he had likely been in that county for quite some time. Unfortunately, his passing precluded his appearance in the subsequent census.

Assuming that was the only Townsend man by the name of Light would be a mistake, however. If we looked in the northern Florida region where Delaney Townsend went to marry Andrew Charles in 1841, we would eventually discover there were at least two other men there who bore the same name, Light Townsend. One was a son of a suspected brother of Delaney, Benjamin, who died intestate; we can see his son Light listed in the 1860 census as one of two ten year old twins in Benjamin's household. 

Another Townsend man living in northern Florida—David R. Townsend, whose name appeared as probate judge in the administration of Benjamin Townsend's estate—also happened to have a son named Light, listed in his household in the 1860 census, along with a possible daughter named Kiziah, a name strikingly similar to that of the eighty year old woman living in the South Carolina Townsend household. 

If the story we learned yesterday from Aunt Fannie was true, census records would not provide us with any evidence confirming the presence of Delaney's two orphaned daughters in the household of the South Carolina man named Light Townsend. There might, however, be records of proceedings naming a guardian of the orphans. That would be a next step for researching this family story from Aunt Fannie, except for one other detail: I've found those possible orphan girls listed in someone else's household. 

According to Aunt Fannie

 

Somehow, genealogical verification beginning with the words, "according to Aunt Fannie," just doesn't have the academic ring of a traditional footnote. The truth of the matter, though, is that the Townsend lineage of my third great-grandmother may well be resting on the testimony of a woman named Fannie McClellan Rowell.

I was surprised to see, right there in the midst of a 1948 DAR application, attribution for some facts on the Townsend family credited to a letter written by Fannie Rowell. Yes, the Townsend family Bible was also mentioned in that application, but a DAR file like that is usually chock full of references to vital records, census records, and other governmental documents. Letters from Aunt Fannie? Well, that's different.

I've written about Aunt Fannie before, as early as 2015, when I was trying to piece together her own relationship to my maternal grandmother's McClellan family. She had always been referred to—at least in my family—as Fannie Rowell, not McClellan, and I naturally needed to chart the genealogical connection.

Since then, I've had to refer back to Aunt Fannie's stories in 2019, and again in 2021, while researching the connection between that same McClellan family and the published stories told by a man named King Stockton, who grew up in the McClellan household as the son of an enslaved woman.

Here she was again, this Aunt Fannie, mentioned in an application for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. While Aunt Fannie may have been old—she was not my aunt, nor my mother's aunt, but my grandmother's aunt—she certainly wasn't old enough to be providing testimony of such family matters as if she had personally witnessed them in her own lifetime. She did, however, provide details about her mother who, in turn, was Delaney Townsend Charles' daughter Emma.

Thanks to details in a letter from Aunt Fannie, cited in that DAR application, the applicant explained that, after the widowed Delaney's death, her orphaned daughters were taken to live for a while in South Carolina by a man named Light Townsend. The applicant also explained that Aunt Fannie, the granddaughter of Delaney Townsend Charles, had sent letters with names and dates of family members to John R. Townsend, grandson of Light Townsend, and thus that information had been preserved by the Townsend branch of that family.

Preserved, that is, as long as it was correctly noted, correctly transcribed, and adequately protected from the ravages of time. Where those original letters are now, I can't say, but at least some semblance of those reports has been preserved through that 1948 DAR application.

In the meantime, the question becomes: who was Light Townsend of South Carolina? Why was he so concerned about the orphaned children of Delaney Townsend Charles in Florida? If he did, indeed, travel to Florida to bring those daughters back to live with him in South Carolina, I'd like to find any records to indicate such an arrangement. But first, let's take the time to examine just who Light Townsend actually was.

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. 

Doing the D N A Route

 

If there is no way to find a connection to an ancestor through the usual paper trail, we are now fortunate that we can take a different route: using DNA tests. Apparently, there are a lot of my Townsend cousins opting to take that same alternate route. Right now, there are one hundred twenty one of them just waiting for me to check our connection.

Fortunately for me, some of those Townsend cousins descend from supposed brothers of my third great-grandmother Delaney who, even more fortunately, managed to have their name recorded in records of the early 1800s in either South Carolina or Florida.

While I haven't—so far—unearthed any records about Allen Townsend that indicated any connection with Delaney or her immediate family, there are twelve DNA matches, according to the ThruLines tool at Ancestry.com, who descend from Allen and show a genetic connection to me.

So far, I've traced the paper trail to verify each match's link to Allen Townsend (and not, coincidentally, to any other of my family lines). Everything appears to be verifiable for those descendants of Allen. And somehow—albeit very minutely—we share segments of DNA. Enough, that is, to satisfy genetic genealogists that there is a connection.

I'll keep checking out the other DNA matches with that ancestral link to Allen Townsend—well, at least all but the ones who only included an enigmatic moniker—adding them to that floating branch in my family tree as I go. From that point, I'll move on to another of the Townsend men who also moved from Marlboro County, South Carolina, to Madison County, Florida.

Next on my list will be Benjamin Townsend, with nine of whose descendants I share DNA. But first, let's take a look at what might have been mentioned in Benjamin's will.

Considering the Uncertainty of This Frail and Transitory Life

 

As had so many of our ancestors before him, on May 26, 1877, Allen Townsend sat down to consider the uncertainty of his "frail and transitory" life—at least the part that still lay before him. He was not alone as he considered that future devoid of his presence, for the document he drew up contained the signatures of those several acquaintances whom he had called upon to witness his written wishes.

Allen Townsend's life trajectory—at that point, at least—was not as uncertain as it might have seemed. Within three years, that document would be called upon to put his affairs in order for one final time.

What I was hoping, in finding the Townsend will, was to capture any indication of how Allen was related to any of the other Townsends living in Madison County, Florida. All those among the elder Townsends in Madison County had, in one census record or another, reported that they were natives of South Carolina, not Florida. I wanted to find some sign of their connection.

An ancestor's last testament can sometimes provide us such a gift to guide us through an otherwise unexplained connection between family members. Sometimes, a wife's relative—often a brother—might be named as executor, for instance, to ensure that the widow received all that her husband had intended for her after his demise. The dying man, himself, might mention his own siblings among the details in his will. Even for those dying intestate, the monotonous reading through probate records might point out interested family members present to purchase treasured family relics from among the items in the liquidated estate.

While I had hoped for the same from Allen Townsend's will, his was not one looking backwards to those older than he was—nor even looking to any younger siblings. The closest I could come to family connections within the document was discovering that one of the witnesses had married a Townsend daughter—Josephene, who became wife of Benjamin Duval.

It was Allen Townsend's headstone in the family cemetery which so clearly indicated his origin in South Carolina. One step will be to examine what can be found concerning the Townsend family at the place of their stated origin, Marlboro County, South Carolina. Though Allen was somewhat older than the other two Townsends I have found in Madison County, Florida, perhaps he was not quite the oldest child of the parents I am seeking—if, indeed, he was brother of Delaney at all. Checking what records can be found on the Townsend family in Marlboro County, South Carolina, will be part of our tour of duty for this month's Twelve Most Wanted goal.

In addition, there are twelve DNA matches which connect descendants of Allen Townsend with my own DNA test, according to Ancestry.com's ThruLines tool. I am halfway through checking for documentation on those connections, and six matches provide a solid trail of records to connect those people back to Allen Townsend. Their connection to my test points in the direction of a relationship between my family line and theirs—but whether that is owing to Delaney's own relationship to Allen, or connection through another family line, is something I have yet to determine. 

All About Allen

 

When we are stuck on a "brick wall" ancestor, it's time to chip away at any bit of information we can find on the family, and that includes exploring collateral lines. While I don't yet know that the Townsend men who moved from South Carolina to settle in Madison County in territorial Florida were Delaney Townsend's brothers, I'm thinking my third great-grandmother Delaney—unmarried at the time of her arrival in Florida—could possibly have hitched a ride to the Florida panhandle with one of those Townsend men in town.

This week, we'll start off by focusing on everything we can find on the older of the two Townsend brothers in Madison County: Allen. Since Allen is easily found in the 1850 census, we can see he was born in South Carolina about 1801. Along with Sarah, his presumed wife and mother of his six named children, all but one family member were also born in South Carolina. After a daughter they named Florida—a telltale sign of their intentions—their youngest child, Josephine, was born in Florida in 1840, marking the approximate end of their journey southward.

Since many people of that time period moved for the purpose of seeking suitable land, I checked the General Land Office Records at the website for the Bureau of Land Management. Sure enough, there were entries for someone named Allen Townsend who had acquired several parcels of land in Madison County, Florida. Earliest of those entries was dated July 28 of 1838.

It was from Allen's death in Madison County that we gain our best clue about his origin. His 1880 headstone, placed in the Townsend Family Cemetery in Madison, Florida, informs us that he was born on November 21, 1801, in Marlboro County, South Carolina. While that headstone looks a bit too pristine to trust it to be contemporaneous with his passing, it is still worth our while to consider that information as at least a hint.

Now that we have a date of death for Allen Townsend, the next stop will be to search court records for a will and probate procedures, in the hopes that perhaps a witness to his will might be one of his own brothers—a handy clue for our purposes.

In the meantime, as I've done for so many others whose family connection still stirs lingering doubts, I'll make an entry in my family tree for Allen, but mark it with a big yellow triangular warning sign. In this case, being unsure of the connection, I'll also make Allen's entry in my tree the start of a "floating branch," cutting him off from any indication of relationship to Delaney until I've found documentation to assure me of the connection. The sooner we can find trustworthy records, though, we'll hopefully be able to reconnect Allen Townsend to the correct spot in the Townsend family tree. 

Chipping Off the Old Block

 

Despite lacking any actual documentation to tie my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend to her roots, there is another option we can try: explore her genetic record. While this pushes me to the outer edge of the realm of viable DNA matches, it is possible to find some connections. It's just that those links will be fairly weak, if present at all. Like chipping little shards off the old block of her parentage, the genetic material passed down through the generations—both in my line and that of Delaney Townsend's siblings—will still include a sliver of that inherited Townsend identity.

While I have yet to find a will for Delaney's supposed father in their home county of Marlboro in South Carolina, it was quite obvious that the then-remote place in territorial Florida where she traveled to marry Andrew Charles in 1841 also was home to two Townsend men and their families. Whether they were brothers of hers, I can't yet say. But for a place like Madison County, Florida—which at the time had a population under three thousand people—chances may have been better than average that Benjamin Townsend and Allen Townsend were Delaney's brothers.

This weekend, I decided to see what could be discovered about these possible DNA connections. For Benjamin Townsend's line, I currently have nine matches. For Allen Townsend, there are twelve. Sure, we all share a minor amount of genetic material—we are, after all, talking about relatives who share a set of fourth great-grandparents—but where there is at least some shared genetic material, even of that small amount, there is some sort of family connection.

In the background this month, I'll keep working my way through that set of DNA matches—besides the two Florida Townsend residents, there are one hundred additional Townsend DNA connections yet to review—but my next step is to get back to the paper chase. I'll look closely at the possible collateral lines of Allen and Benjamin Townsend to examine records associated with each of them. Especially in the case of wills or administration of estates, I'll watch for any clues of other Townsend family connections.

Lacking direct documentation, sometimes we can infer relationships based on the appearance of names in key documents: choices of witnesses to wills, or appointment of executors or guardians. This coming week, we'll explore what can be found through the records of these two of Delaney's possible brothers.

Bungling Birthdays

 

Who would forget their birthday? That's a question I find myself asking when I run into an ancestor reporting a roving date of birth.

Sometimes it's just a matter of a misplaced year. I've seen young men in previous centuries, eager to march off to war, insisting that their year of birth was earlier than it really was. Likewise, I've seen some aging relatives who suddenly gained a year overnight, when eligibility for Social Security benefits became a question. But a wandering day of birth? That's what has me puzzled.

It just so happens that today—February 8—is a day when I remember my family always celebrated my father's birthday. Only it wasn't his birthday. We just never knew that.

Long after my father passed away, one day I was visiting my much older half-sister and comparing notes on our family history—especially that closely-held Polish heritage of my father's secretive parents. The conversation wandered onto birthdates of various relatives. My sister made a comment about February 10 being when she remembered celebrating Dad's birthday.

Wait a minute, I thought. Surely she was mistaken about that memory. But no, she was quite confident in her childhood recollection.

That's when I remembered a small detail a distant relative had discovered about our dad. He had been poking around his computer during those earlier days of online genealogy and had located Dad's birth record. While the year of his birth had surprised me—not to mention this being the first document bearing the true surname of his immigrant parents—the record revealed another detail: neither I nor my older sister were correct about the day he was born. It wasn't the eighth, nor the tenth. It was February 5.

There, in my own family history, was an example of that frustrating wandering date of birth. Thinking of that now, I guess I can cut those other ancestors some slack, as well, for their inability to cite the same number each time they were asked to report their date of birth.

If at First You Cannot Find, Search, Search Again

 

The farther back in time we go to trace our ancestors, the more likely it is that we'll encounter snags when the pen-and-ink handwriting of past centuries encounters the digitization process more agreeable to today's computers. I learned that this week while unraveling the family history trail of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend and her husband Andrew Charles in 1850s Florida.

Turning to local newspapers can be a handy secondary resource when our ancestors fail to appear in the usual documents of the era. As I mentioned yesterday, I was elated to discover a brief insert in The Floridian and Journal pinpointing the date of Delaney's husband's 1850 death. I had searched for the family's names in the collection at GenealogyBank, and that one article had been my sole result.

I was grateful for what I could find there—if it weren't for that newspaper entry, I wouldn't have found anything—but I still wondered what had become of the rest of the extended Charles family in Madison County, Florida. I spent the evening pulling up links to legal documents regarding the administration of the various Charles estates.

Early this morning, in my ongoing email conversation with fellow genea-blogger Charles Purvis, I discovered a friend of his had passed along a news clip from GenealogyBank concerning another Charles obituary: for Andrew Charles' mother, Rebecca.

"That's funny," I thought. "Why didn't that show up in my search results?"

I went back to my GenealogyBank account, logged in, and tried my search for Rebecca Charles once again. Nothing. I returned to Charlie's email, took a look at the newspaper source and date—The Floridian and Journal for April 3 of 1852—and honed my search terms until there was no wiggle room left for the search engine. It had to find the article.

Perhaps there were grunts and groans out in the ether as the search engine complied with my query, but there it was, just as Charlie's friend had sent it.

Died at her residence at Charles' Ferry, Suwannee River, on the 25th January, Mrs. Rebecca Charles, in the 58th year of her age. The subject of this notice was raised in Buncombe County, N. C., and emigrated to Florida with her late husband before the change of Flags—having lived where she died upwards of thirty years, rendering efficient aid and comfort to many a weary traveller now living to testify to the hospitality of her house—Mrs. Charles connected herself with the Methodist Episcopal Church some years ago, and although she never made high pretensions to piety, her friends and relations have abundant reason to believe they mourn their loss not as those who mourn without hope.

Having found the insertion only after several tries, I wondered why the article hadn't shown up on my first search attempt. Looking at the faded newsprint, I figured it might have been possible that the optical character recognition could have run afoul of the faded letters in the name Rebecca. For that reason, I toyed with using different search terms to persuade the search process to come up with the desired result. The winning combination was to use only the surname, plus select the specific newspaper name—fortunately, there weren't too many options in that part of Florida in the early 1850s—and the specific year.

That experience, of course, prompted one of those "notes to self" moments. When using a search engine to find records in documents with variable imprints—either newsprint or faded handwriting—don't be discouraged when the search brings up zero results. Try, try again. Vary the search terms. Experiment with spelling variations. Check out whether "less is more" is the motto for that website's operation. Despite ink blots, faded print, torn pages, whatever you do, just keep searching. 

Image above: Clipping of "Obituary" for Rebecca Charles from page three of The Floridian and Journal, published April 3, 1852, in Tallahassee, Florida; courtesy of GenealogyBank.com