Checking Who's in the Neighborhood

 

In the effort to piece together the story of Delaney Townsend, my third great-grandmother from South Carolina who spent her adult life in Florida, I couldn't help but notice a record just one page over from Madison County's authorization to solemnize Delaney's marriage to Andrew J. Charles. The next record, dated only two weeks after the March 8, 1841, record for the Townsend/Charles marriage, was for someone named Benjamin Townsend.

Checking the census for Madison County nine years afterwards, Benjamin Townsend and his wife Jane showed up with four children all under the age of ten. More to my point, though, was the entry for Benjamin's place of birth: South Carolina, same as my Delaney Townsend.

It was tempting to assume that Benjamin and Delaney might be brother and sister, but I restrained myself. After all, South Carolina was a state which, at the time, encompassed a population of over six hundred thousand people. There were plenty of chances for this to be a coincidence that the two families shared a surname.

However, I couldn't help myself: I ended up checking the Madison County results for that 1850 census, looking for any more Townsend entries. There were several Townsends who gave their place of birth as South Carolina. Besides Benjamin, there were Allen and Sarah Townsend, and Samuel and Edia Townsend. Siblings? Cousins? Kinfolk?

I poked around Madison County a bit more. Looking at Find A Grave, I checked burial records in Madison County for Townsends. While many of the entries were likely for children of the couples I just named, there was one memorial for Allen Townsend. That entry included a photograph of the memorial headstone, specifying exactly where in South Carolina to look: Marlboro County. Could that have been the case for the other Townsends in Madison County, Florida?

The F.A.N. Club theory has proven successful in tracing other brick wall ancestors, and is particularly calling my name right now to look for family, associates, or neighbors who might have made that same trip from Marlboro County, South Carolina, to Madison County, Florida. It may be time to see whether all these Townsends have relatives in common, whether siblings, cousins, or more distant connections.

The fact that they all originated in South Carolina but decided to show up in the same location in then-territorial Florida is calling me to look for further clues. After all, remember I'm on the hunt to find documentation of the connection to South Carolina for my third great-grandmother Delaney. Though others assert the connection, I have yet to find anyone who has provided the evidence for the relationships.