Finding the Family Details

 

There are several details about a family's history which may be available to those who know how to search through publicly-available records. But when there are no such records easily accessed—I'm thinking here of my suspected third great-grandfather William Laws of northeastern Tennessee, possible father of Sarah Catherine Laws Davis—the next step, besides looking locally, is to check for private records. That's why I reach out to others researching the same family lines, especially those who also have tested their DNA for genealogical purposes and discovered that we match.

I tend to presume that my DNA matches would know more about their direct line ancestors than I do for simple reasons. I think of all the descendants who inherited family heirlooms, or at least got some of the old family photos. When it comes to thinking about recipients of such generational gifts, that would not be me. However, in the case of one branch of this particular Laws family I'm researching, I'm thinking also of one valuable collectible I do have: the Davis family Bible.

My second great-grandmother, Sarah Catherine Laws, married a man by the name of Thomas Davis. Though the Bible I now possess doesn't reach back that far in the family's history, it does provide me with some full names, along with dates of birth, marriage, and death for my Davis ancestors, all written in the hand of an ancestor who gifted me with some of that Davis DNA.

Somewhere among all my Laws DNA matches, I'd like to hope a distant cousin might have a similar record of family members, passed along from generation to generation. So I keep reaching out to find someone.

There are other ways to check for family Bibles, of course. I was already aware of the family Bible record collection of the Daughters of the American Revolution, an index of over forty thousand such digitized records which can be searched online through their Genealogical Research System (GRS). But what I didn't know was that there are other resources for finding family records in Bibles kept by previous generations, such as through the Digital Public Library of America. Beyond that, some such resources are tucked away at various state archives and other repositories of historical material.

Granted, the patchwork spread of resources may make searching for a specific family's personally-kept records challenging. There may not even be such a record kept in prior centuries by my Laws ancestors, whoever they turn out to be. But at least I can start by reaching out to DNA matches and others who have their tree posted online and ask if they know of such a resource.

In the meantime, having such a treasure for my own Davis line makes me realize that the book, like all of us, is not getting any younger. It's time to check on the best way to help preserve it so that I can pass it on to future generations, intact and still legible. At some future point, someone may want to take a look at this keepsake for which I'm serving as current conservator.