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.
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