It sometimes feels as if the family history pursuit is a chase that leads in circles. In this month's goal to determine exactly which line of the Laws family of North Carolina and Tennessee would be mine, it seems as if I haven't made much progress. Not that I haven't covered research ground; it's just that for every search term I try, it seems I round the final bend in the journey, coming back empty-handed.
There is something about Greene County, Tennessee, the place where William Laws settled his family by 1870. It seems to be a place where people may go to die—yet their demise never results in flowery obituaries, let alone a burial marker to commemorate their absence. With those items missing, my chance of uncovering clues about the dearly departed's loved ones left behind vanishes.
While I check alternate resources for such missing records—going local here for resources—I've returned to work through the seventeen Laws family DNA matches waiting for my confirmation at Ancestry's ThruLines tool. Tentative third great-grandfather William Laws may well be related to me somehow, as witnessed by the matches who claim his son Larkin Laws as their ancestor. A small victory—you wouldn't believe the tiny size of the shared centiMorgans here—but I'm glad to have one glimmer of hope. These are, after all, DNA connections at the fourth cousin level.
Documentation, however, would be nicer. And something tells me there has got to be a way to find it. Remembering that not every record is preserved online yet—despite remarkable progress by organizations such as FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, and MyHeritage.com—sometimes this dilemma calls for hands-on effort. Phone calls and emails seem so antiquated after years of instant access via online connections, but it's time to reach out and research other available avenues.
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