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.