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. 

Searching for Sarah Catherine

 

FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search has been available since they announced the new development at last year's RootsTech conference, but I still run into people who have yet to give it a try.

As the old commercial used to say, "Try it; you'll like it." That, at least, is what I think about this resource. After putting the service through its paces on several ancestors last year, I'm certainly excited to see what else I can find, especially now that I'm stuck with the thought that perhaps my second great-grandmother Sarah Catherine Laws Davis might not be the family member I thought she was. I'm seeking a bit more firm footing, documentation-wise, in climbing this woman's 1838 to 1893 timeline in northeastern Tennessee.

Recently, the FamilySearch blog put out an article on "What to Expect From FamilySearch in 2025." Among the many anticipated upcoming developments, the article included a section on Full-text search. The January 6 article referred to how the FamilySearch Labs' Artificial Intelligence is "unlocking incredible discoveries hidden in unindexed, handwritten historical records that have never been searchable before now." Precisely why I want to use it to check for any connections between Sarah Catherine Laws, wife of Thomas Davis, and Catherine Laws, daughter of William Laws, the shoemaker from North Carolina.

The way the FamilySearch Labs is set up allows them to offer signed-in users a test drive of not just the Full Text search, but several other experimental features. All they ask in return is that researchers provide them with feedback on their user experience. As they note on the Labs' website, "You can influence important decisions on potential FamilySearch features and improvements."

The projects available have changed over time. Right now, the featured tools include options to apply as an early tester for an "enhanced tree feature," as well as an AI-assisted search on the FamilySearch.org website, and making "unforgettable memories" with "Together by FamilySearch."

When I first found out about the Full Text Search capability, I did test it out and provide feedback. I could see where it might be cumbersome for some search terms—I think at the time I was looking for more information on my ancestor John Carter, a name which doomed me to overload on possible hits. But I also realized its value in locating possible parents' names for some of my brick wall ancestors.

I'll be spending the weekend putting the program through its paces once again. Hopefully, William Laws will not be as overwhelming a search term to choose as was John Carter. At least in William's case, I already know some sons' names—Wiley, Larkin, and Pine Dexter—which couldn't possibly be among the most popular given names of his century. They will come in handy as keywords in this search for Sarah Catherine's presumed father, William Laws.

Rule Number One: Start With Yourself

 

It is from my third great-grandmother Rachel Tilson that I have a potential connection with the line of a Mayflower passenger. That, of course, is what propels my research quest this month. My goal is to be able to sufficiently document a connection beginning with my maternal grandfather's Davis family, then moving through my Tilson ancestors until the matrilineal connection with Priscilla Mullins, wife of John Alden. However, everybody who has done family history research knows that we don't begin with such starry-eyed litanies; for our genealogical research, we begin with ourselves, then only move beyond that point step by step and document by document. Today, I'll begin recounting the pathway from my current, obviously personally known, family to the Tilson nexus.

My maternal grandfather, born in 1897, was a Davis. He was born in the tiny town of Erwin, Tennessee, in the northeast corner of the state nestled amidst the Blue Ridge Mountains and flush with the North Carolina state border. He was the youngest, and only surviving son, of the six children of "Will" and "Cassie" Boothe Davis.

His father Will—officially William David Davis—was, in turn, son of Thomas, who was son of James Davis. It was with this James Davis that the family line was established in the area around Erwin, Tennessee—although at that earlier time, the settlement was part of Washington County in that same state. I know the family was in the area at least as early as 1822, for that is when, according to an index of marriage licenses in Washington County, James made Rachel Tilson his bride.

While Rachel was obviously in Tennessee for her 1822 wedding, that is not where she began life. On Monday, we'll review what is already known about her early years before she—and, presumably, the rest of her family—arrived in Tennessee. From that point, we'll explore what can be found on that particular Tilson line in Virginia for the next few generations.

Pinpointing the Right Peleg

 

Census records may come in handy when trying to trace ancestors, but they come with a downside: in census records, you can only spot those ancestors once every ten years. Using a will as a record to document family connections may be useful, but that, too, comes with a caveat: we only die once—and after that, it's a scramble, sometimes, to find not only the date of death, but the repository for the will, if there even was one. 

In order to trace Peleg Tilson as he traveled from his supposed birthplace in the wilderness of Washington County, Virginia, to his land holdings in Washington County, Tennessee, we will first need to examine his whereabouts a bit more precisely than either of those two record options. That's where tax records come in.

The first question driving me to pinpoint Peleg's precise location in time is to discover the location of his daughter Rachel's birth. Rachel, being my third great-grandmother, had been reported with two different places of birth. According to the old Tilson genealogy, she was born in Saint Clair, Virginia—a reasonable statement, given that the Tilson book gives the same place of birth for many of her siblings. But not all.

It was fairly easy to locate a record of Rachel's marriage to James Davis, on September 12, 1822, in Washington County, Tennessee. When we move to the next instance of her name in public records—the 1850 census—we discover the report that she was born, not in Virginia, but in Tennessee. Of course, her place of birth was included in a long string of "ditto" marks from an entry for "Tenn" half a page away. Carelessness of an enumerator? Hard to tell.

Her given age, according to that 1850 census, was forty eight. Doing the math, that would give a year of birth as approximately 1802. But would her parents have been in Tennessee by 1802? The earliest tax record in which I can find Rachel's father—remember, those records provide year by year documentation—is 1806.

True, Peleg did become a landowner in Tennessee, meaning that somewhere there has to have been a will at his passing. But when was that? Finding such a name in later tax records doesn't necessarily mean anything without the reference of an age, as there were at least three Pelegs in that extended Tilson family.

A will for this Peleg would hopefully include an indication that Rachel—by then, a Davis—was his daughter. That's the vital connection I need as my first step in linking my line back through Peleg and then onward to his father William. And William Tilson, the one who wandered far from his birthplace in Massachusetts, would be our next step in following this wild paper chase to confirm Rachel's connection to the line leading back to those Mayflower ancestors.  

Taxes and Other Dull Topics

 

I can see why some people don't really take to family history. There is a dreary side to research which requires the fortitude necessary to drag one's self through such scintillating record sets as local and property taxes. And that is pretty much what this Tilson and Davis liaison from Washington County, Tennessee, is calling me to do.

In the face of a cheery upcoming holiday season, reading through tax records is hardly what I am looking forward to doing. Brick wall ancestors, however, sometimes call us to slog through such details. 

Jumping in—after all, one can never start a project without taking that first step—I found one record set at FamilySearch which looked promising. The Tennessee tax records in this set began in Washington County in 1778, plenty of time for my Tilson ancestors to make their arrival from Virginia before the last page of the collection's initial volume wrapped up the year of 1846. After all, my Tilson ancestors—and a possible Davis ancestor—were said to have arrived just as that century opened.

Unfortunately, despite highly legible pages, thanks to a clerk with a straightforward hand—not too messy, but with not too many flourishes, either—it appeared the records seemed to skip a few years, right when I'd like to spot the first appearance of my Tilsons and Davises. I did find one Nathaniel Davis—not that I know anything about this man, but it could lead to something promising—but not much else.

I'm still in the page-by-page process right now. The record set is not indexed for easy searching, though it is mostly organized by year. It appears everyone was organized by groups under men called Captains. Until I know which captain would be the overseer for the region in which my ancestors settled, I'm bound to move my way through the entire set, page by page. Wouldn't want to miss anything essential.

Image above: Washington County (Tennesssee) List of Taxables for Captain William Taylor's Company in 1801, including entry for Nathaniel Davis; from FamilySearch.org digitized tax books 1778-1846, film number 825545.

Among the Earliest Settlers

 

Do you ever wonder who were the first to establish the community your ancestors called home? In my case, some of the first European settlers to move into a wilderness area in North America were my forebears. Since I have no clue what their ethnic identity might have been at that time, perhaps the law of averages can guide me, simply by inquiring as to which immigrant groups settled the areas where my family roamed.

In the case of my Tilson ancestors, they were fairly early arrivals in the southwestern corner of the Virginia colony. Once again, when they moved to northwestern Tennessee—that Washington District of North Carolina which eventually became part of the new state of Tennessee—they were apparently among the early arrivals. If the F.A.N. Club principle holds true—that acronym representing the family, friends, associates, and neighbors of the wandering Peleg Tilson—perhaps that will give me a hint as to what his ethnicity was.

Wandering through the reference materials on this region in the past, I had spotted mention of those early settlers as primarily comprised of Scots-Irish immigrants and their descendants. It certainly fulfills the stereotype: pushing the boundaries of civilization, living on the edge, valuing independence and the room to make their own decisions.

That was where the Tilsons were when they pushed the legal boundaries of colonial Virginia, remaining where they settled, scoffing at the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Again, in the uprising which sought to establish the new state of Franklin, rumblings of perceived neglect and misuse by North Carolina's legislature sounded much like the stereotypical representation of the Scots-Irish.

However, when I look for descriptions of the background of those who settled that Washington County area—whether considered part of Virginia, North Carolina, or Tennessee—all I can find are notes that Tennessee was settled by Virginians or settled by Europeans. This gives me no context for what my roots might actually have been, concerning these early settlers.

Looking for further information on the earliest arrivals in that northeastern tip of Tennessee where my Tilson line eventually settled, it is not hard to find articles on those early names. An oft-repeated article online was drawn from a March 21, 1962, article published in The Erwin Record, Erwin being the Tennessee location of my grandfather's birth and childhood. A "little later" than the first arrivals in 1772 were five men, named as "Baxter Davis, Enoch Job, Jesse Brown and Peleg and William Tilson."

Essentially the same article was drawn from volume two of an 1887 book called, simply enough, History of Tennessee. Whether reading the version drawn up seventy five years earlier makes the list of names more certain, I certainly can't say, but seeing Peleg Tilson in both printings is encouraging. 

Peleg Tilson, of course, is the name I'm following in my current research project, but I can't help but cast an eye on the name Baxter Davis, for within a generation, Peleg's daughter Rachel was married to a Davis descendant, who happened to name his firstborn son by that same Davis name.   

With the convergence of what essentially added up to three states' claim upon the region where Peleg settled, clues to those governmental claims could point us in any of three directions in determining where those settlers had come from. Fortunately, it was easy to see that Peleg once lived in Virginia colony. But I've always been curious as to that other early settler named in those records—the one named Baxter Davis. If he came to Tennessee at about the same time as the two Tilson men, could he have known them back in Virginia? After all, F.A.N. Club and all, one would think it a strong possibility.

Sifting Through the Match List

 

I realize there are all sorts of approaches to sifting through those myriad DNA matches we receive in exchange for spitting in a tube mailed to a genetic genealogy company. Believe me, since my case involves a current count of over two thousand of what Ancestry calls "close matches"—fourth cousin or closer—and nearly thirty five thousand matches in total, I'm all for figuring out how to make sense of such a jumble of results.

Still, as we've already explored, simply using the tool Ancestry provides—their Thru-Lines listings—gives me only four puny matches linked specifically to my target ancestor, second great-grandmother Catherine Laws of northeastern Tennessee. Of those four matches, the one with the largest amount of genetic material in common with me amounts to a share of only twelve centiMorgans, hardly a sure lead—though I did determine exactly where she fits in my family tree.

Instead of relying solely on Thru-Lines, I try a different approach, one I've come to prefer, despite the added work to keep track of progress. I start by pulling up my entire match list and searching for those who have, in their affixed family tree, a specific surname in common with me. In this case, I entered the Laws surname in the search box, and pulled up twenty four matches who share at least twenty centiMorgans with me.

I record the names resulting from that family tree search—spreadsheet fans know where to go with this recordkeeping task—and also note the estimated relationship range, amount of centiMorgans in common, and how many segments that shared amount involves. Once I have that material listed, I then click through each Laws match candidate—I just open each one in quick succession by filling in a sequence of tabs across my computer screen so I can move quickly from one match to the next. The main point is to examine each candidate's "Shared Matches" for those lists which yield a cluster of repeated matches' names.

In that way, I spotted a few specific matches who kept showing up in a cluster. In particular, I zeroed in on those who met this criterion as well as being among those matches who shared only one segment with me. That is important because of the risk of finding matches who actually belong to the other interrelated lines from the small Tennessee communities where my ancestors lived. As became obvious during this process of elimination, some "shared matches" really connected with my Davis, Boothe, or Broyles lines, rather than specifically and solely pointing back to that Laws connection I am seeking.

Of the twenty four matches located through this process, three stood out as strong possibilities. They range from the largest match sharing ninety one centiMorgans to one with a single segment containing only twenty eight centiMorgans. I'll use these three as test cases, exploring the documentation they provide in their own trees, as well as building out a hypothetical tree upwards from my second great-grandmother to her parents and siblings.

While I'm in the midst of that (admittedly messy) process, on Monday, I'll explain what's behind my reasoning for focusing on one particular hypothesis for Catherine Laws' parents. I may be right. I may turn out to be wrong. But stuck as I am at this point, there isn't any possibility of forward movement without the willingness to experiment. In some ways, the way forward beyond a brick wall ancestor—at least with the assistance of DNA testing—is not much different than the techniques used by adoptees to find their birth parents.  

 

Bring That Background Information to the Forefront

 

DNA testing, when applied to genealogy, seems so science-y that we begin to think of it as a turnkey operation: enter facts, press button, out comes the answer.

Not so fast, I've discovered. The results of our exploration may be far more nuanced than we'd hoped. Take my quest to discover the identity of my second great-grandmother's parents. Catherine Laws and her descendants are easily traceable from their home in tiny Erwin, Tennessee, but she becomes a cypher once we try to pass beyond the sparse documentation asserting her marriage to Thomas Davis on November 6, 1856.

Of course, now I can take my research problem to my DNA matches at the four major companies where I've tested, and hope one is close enough to lead me to the answer I'm seeking. But it isn't always as straightforward as one would hope; there may be pitfalls. Gaining a clear understanding of the background information of Catherine's situation can help eliminate some false leads and steer us closer to the right direction.

Today, we'll examine just a few of the pitfalls I want to avoid, before we move on to inspect the best candidates to lead us to our answers.

When we first find Catherine Laws, it is upon the occasion of her marriage. That event took place not in the location of her birth—North Carolina, a fact we don't uncover until the 1880 census—but in Washington County, Tennessee.

Unless a researcher lives in or near the area of their ancestors, it is hard to understand how the location of the county can impact the result of research. In Catherine's case, Washington County at the time of her marriage was far larger than it was when, over two decades later, she showed up in a different county, known as Unicoi County. She may well have been living in the same place all along, with the county line moving around her, since Unicoi was actually carved from Washington County in 1875. In addition, the area which became Unicoi County borders the state line dividing Tennessee from North Carolina. With that, we realize that this woman who grew up in one state and removed to another may have accomplished that transition simply by following a road over a mountain pass.

To complicate our DNA scenario, when I look at Catherine's descendants—my great-grandfather Will Davis' collateral lines—I realize that both he and his older brother married women whose maiden names were Boothe. Granted, that can be a fairly common surname—and I have yet to find where the two women might be related. But here's the catch: these are two women living in a relatively isolated mountain area in a county which, at the time, boasted a population of less than four thousand people. There is a good chance that any descendants of those two lines might be doubly related to each other, both through their Davis line and through their Boothe line.

Fortunately, there are records showing that, for a while, Catherine and Thomas Davis may have moved to neighboring Greene County, Tennessee. But even that may interject double relatives, if the Laws families living in Greene County at the time were actually Catherine's relatives. Here's the reason: some of those Laws people married spouses by the name of Broyles—yet another surname intertwined in my roots. In fact, whether in Greene County or back in Washington and Unicoi Counties, there were plenty of Broyles family connections to complicate DNA results.

With limited populations living in small, isolated communities, the chance becomes all the greater that there may be some sort of pedigree collapse among any possible DNA matches. To help me with my current research goal of determining Catherine's parents, I'd need a DNA match—or more—to clearly demonstrate that we are related only through the Laws line. Granted, that would include an as yet unknown to me maiden name of Catherine's mother, as well. But it is important that it not mix in any connections with the Boothe or Broyles lines.

A straight across DNA match with someone else descended from Catherine's parents—my Laws third great-grandparents, whoever they were—would involve connecting with a fourth cousin. According to Blaine Bettinger's updated Shared cM Project at DNA Painter, matching fourth cousins can share as much as 139 centiMorgans—and, of course, anything less than that amount. Yet I certainly do not come anywhere as close as that highest amount, when examining potential Laws matches. Most of my Laws matches include much smaller amounts—down to numbers far below twenty, which I consider to be beyond a prudent cut-off point.

Even in the smaller amounts, hovering around the 20 cM cut-off point, I watch for one more detail: whether the match and I share multiple segments or just one. At the smaller numbers, spotting just one segment in common gives me more confidence the inherited segment came from only one family line—not splinters from the blended Boothe/Davis or Laws/Broyles scenarios I wish to avoid. In gleaning all the Laws connections I could find via AncestryDNA, that is exactly what I looked for: DNA matches with the Laws surname in their roots who, if a distant relative, only shared one segment with me. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at what I found.

 

 

D N A : Many Matches, Many Approaches

 

Some people treat DNA testing as a sure thing, the answer to all our genealogical research problems—and in many ways, that can be true. But when we're approaching a messy stack of DNA matches with a presumption—at least at AncestryDNA—that the subscriber's accompanying documentation is pristine, well, we're bound to be disappointed. Even DNA requires our due diligence to untangle some messy knots.

In the case of my second great-grandmother—so close, and yet so far away—Catherine Laws Davis has presented a research problem in that I can't determine who her parents were, even with the help of DNA testing.

That's not to say I don't have options. I can, of course, look at her suggested matches at Ancestry's Thru-Lines tool. But when I look at her own tile on the lineup of direct ancestors at the Thru-Lines listing, all that is presented to me are two matches, both of whom descend from her other children, collateral lines to my great-grandfather, William Davis. Each of those matches represents tiny genetic connections to me, one at twelve centiMorgans, the other at sixteen. Still, I already have them accounted for in my tree. Connecting DNA matches from collateral lines to my first great-grandfather is a piece of cake, in my opinion.

The trouble is, in order to find any specific Laws matches, I need to step back one more generation, to Catherine Laws' parents. But wait! Those are the exact people I don't yet know the identity of, so how can I take a step like that?

Easy enough, according to Ancestry. They have a handy-dandy way to estimate who those ancestors might be: through the multiple trees posted by Ancestry subscribers onto their website.

And we all know how well-researched each and every one of those trees is.

If we go by Ancestry's guess and look at my DNA matches who descend from my supposed third great-grandparents, my Catherine's own parents, my DNA match count magically doubles from two to four people. Still, of those four matches, the centiMorgan count is so low, it borders on the chance of being Identical by State rather than Identical by Descent. In my case, these four DNA matches share 8, 9, 11, or 12 centiMorgans with me.

If I follow the Thru-Lines suggestion for the next generation removed—in other words, Catherine Laws' suggested paternal grandparents—the count of DNA matches skyrockets to twenty one. And yet, how can I be sure that the Thru-Lines suggested ancestors are correct—especially if they are merely drawn from subscribers' trees? Could these matches be related to me via other familial connections?

There may be a few complicating factors in researching my second great-grandmother, Catherine Laws. Before we begin talking science and genetics, and even before we delve further into the paper trail of her genealogy, let's take a look, tomorrow, at some facts about the setting in which she was born, and in which she got married, raised a family, and spent her later years. Some details about the communities in which she spent those stages of her life may reveal some clues to help us understand some pitfalls inherent in this search. After that, we can examine an alternate approach to depending on the Thru-Lines readout.

Not to Complicate Things, But . . .

 

Trying to trace an ancestor through times and locations in which record-keeping was not, ah, shall we say a precise science can be frustrating. Just as I closed my post yesterday regarding just what, exactly, my second great-grandmother's given name might have been—I had settled on Catherine, plain and simple—what should I find but yet another indicator that maybe, just maybe, that wasn't exactly the name she went by.

Oh, groan.

I happened to recall I had purchased a book from the series, "Images of America," which featured a scrapbook-style approach to recounting the history of the town of Erwin, Tennessee—home of my Davis roots—and thought I'd flip through the pages to see if any of my kin might have been included. They were. In fact, there were two photographs which featured the very woman in question, and each was labeled clearly, "Cassa Laws Davis."

Just like she figured in the 1860 census—at least, if my presumption is right—the wife of Thomas Davis was labeled in this book not as Catherine but Cassa. Yet, nowhere else did I find her under that name. Unless, of course, there were two men by the name of Thomas Davis in the vicinity, I think we can safely presume there would be one wife of Thomas Davis for us to concern ourselves. Granted, Davis is a common surname, but even in 1880, the first census following the formation of Unicoi County, the population for the entire county was only 3,645, making it hopefully less likely that there would be duplicate Thomas Davises of the same age residing there.

Finding discrepancies in records regarding the target of our search can be disconcerting. After all, my goal for this month is to discover the identity of Catherine's parents. But that can't easily be done without knowing her own specific identity. Is she really Catherine? Or Cassa? Whatever became of the report that her first name was actually Sarah, with Catherine as a middle name? Each variation added to the mix means a search for yet another identity.

To complicate matters, we don't have specifics on something as simple as the circumstances of her birth. The 1860 census shows "Cassa" as born in Tennessee in 1840. Ten years later, her year of birth in the state had been moved back to 1835. But by 1880, her year of birth had been restored to 1840, yet the location had jumped the border to North Carolina—with the added information that both her parents had been born in that other state, as well.

It is fairly clear, by looking at the photograph of her headstone and that of her husband, that we are looking at two sides of one monument. So, at least by the point of their death, family seemed to agree on a name of Catherine for their mom, and Thomas Davis for their dad. Her headstone provides a date of 1838 for her birth, nearly averaging out the two census estimates—perhaps more as a compromise than an actual fact.

To be clear, while it seems a simple process of looking in that small county for records of any other families by the surname Laws, I get the distinct impression this is not going to be such a straightforward project. Even the record of their marriage in 1856—back then, in what was still part of Washington County, Tennessee—includes such a scrawl of her name as to make the surname look like "Laus." Even worse was the fact that Thomas—if indeed that was him—was listed only by initials, and not the two we'd assume from subsequent records (T. D.), but with an added third initial. Same person? Hard to tell.

Though I'd like to say "fortunately" in preface to my comment that I have several DNA matches to help untangle this research problem, even that is a messy situation. If I use "Thru-Lines" at Ancestry.com to sort out the matches, that program relies on subscribers' own submitted trees—mistakes and all. And who's to say mine doesn't include any? After all, I'm already stumped, and this is only my second great-grandmother.

Granted, sometimes our research is a process of trial and error. We test the possibilities and evaluate whether they can be supported by evidence. Some of those tests will lead to a decision to abandon that hypothesis. Hopefully, one will stand out as amply supported by the documentation it leads us to find. But unless we give the process a try, we'll never know. Tomorrow, we'll begin looking at the DNA possibilities and what they show us.

 

Above: 1856 marriage return in Washington County, Tennessee—predecessor to Unicoi County—is it for our Davis and Laws? Or do those extra initials and sloppy handwriting point to another couple? Image courtesy Ancestry.com. 

Ancestor #3: The Most Wanted of the Most Wanted

In a few days, we will begin the new year of 2020. In that year, among other commemorations, will be the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower. On that tiny ship, among all those other significant passengers, was one crew member who turned out to be my tenth great-grandfather. If, by now, you've guessed I'm related to John Alden, you've astutely identified the far side of my research dilemma. However, it's not the beginning of that Mayflower line I'm concerned about, but the distant reaches of his line of descent that teases me by being just out of my grasp.

Here's the reason why: the General Society of Mayflower Descendants provides properly sanctioned resources to trace the five generations stretching from John Alden (and all the other surviving Mayflower passengers) to the level of their second great-grandchildren. In my case, that would lead to Janet Murdock, who married Stephen Tilson (of the well-documented Tilson line). This is all well and good, as long as we stick with those generations in Massachusetts and surrounding areas, but by the time of the next generation—and their son, William Tilson, in particular—the family has removed from those New England colonies to the back end of Virginia.

Ah, you knew Virginia would be showing up somewhere in this saga.

At that point, still during the pre-Revolutionary War era in the 1760s, the line settled in what was then Washington County, Virginia—until some of the family line moved further on. Some family members continued on to Kentucky—or so the report goes—while the branch including my fifth great-grandfather moved only a short distance to settle in the northeastern part of Tennessee by the early 1800s.

Somewhere in all those colonial documents and early church records from the backwoods of Virginia are likely mentions of this family of William and Marcie Tilson, but as far as I can reach from my armchair researcher's spot out in California, I can't seem to put together the necessary paper trail to connect William's granddaughter Rachel, wife of Tennessean James C. Davis, to her rightful place in not only the Tilson line, but also the key line leading all the way back to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. While I can find hundred-year-old books which, for their own parts, make the assertions which, connected, would lead me all the way back to my goal, I can't find the documentation to bring me clearly from Point A (where I leave off with Rachel Tilson Davis) to Point X, where the Mayflower landed with my tenth great-grandparents.

Hopefully, my strategy to see what resources can be obtained during my January visit to Salt Lake City will conveniently align with my intention to apply for membership to the Mayflower Society before this celebration of the 400th anniversary comes to a close at the end of next year.

 Above: "Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor," 1882 painting by William Formby Halsall; image courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Pants on Fire

Used to be, this was the weekend which ushered in the flurry of preparation for "back to school" season. Though that is no longer the case for many—all but one of the schools our business works with are already in session—I thought it might be informative to wind the clocks back and see what "back to school" times might have brought for my ancestors.

Those "ancestors" on my paternal side would have been the first-generation children of immigrants in New York City. On my maternal side, the scene would shift to more rural settings, such as northern Florida or the northeastern tip of Tennessee. What was the first of September bringing for those families? What I could find, from those go-to documents we've come to rely on as family history researchers, was a definitive "it depends."

Checking that 1940 census, the telltale document which asked for "highest grade completed," it appeared my virtuous maternal grandparents had both completed four years of high school—at least, according to the report given to the enumerator by my grandmother. My mother, only fourteen at the time, was in eighth grade, and her younger sister trailed, one grade behind her.

Shifting over to check on the paternal side, the 1940 census revealed that my father's wife, the reporting party for that enumeration, had put him as having completed four years of high school. Nice, except that in that year, according to the Census Bureau, less than half the population of those aged twenty five or older actually had a high school diploma. Even more to the point, though high school graduation peaked at about fifty percent of one's age cohorts just before the war years hit America (see the graph on page 31 of this report), in the era in which my father would have been finishing such an education, the number of those doing so among his peers was far closer to fifteen percent than fifty percent.

Those wives might have thought themselves smart cookies to put such a polish on their claims to the census enumerator, but what they didn't realize was that we can quite easily verify whether their reports were so. And we find, in an era in which women seldom wore pants, theirs were, figuratively speaking at least, on fire.

Take the census in which my dad should have been in eighth grade, himself. That 1920 census in the Queens borough of New York asked simply whether each person had attended school at any time in the year leading up to the enumeration. My dad's entry was left blank. True, so was the entry for his twelve year old sister, but when we double check by looking to the right margin of the form, we see the report that my father was, at fourteen, working as an errand boy for a New York City bank. That, likely not an uncommon situation for that era, most likely also precluded full time attendance at school.

So, that was the truth of the matter for my paternal side in the big city. What about out in a more bucolic setting? Would either of my maternal grandparents have truly attended school to the bitter end? The answer there, if we can believe those earlier census reports, was also more squishy than definitive.

My grandfather, age thirteen at the time of the 1910 census—and living with an older sister who was by then a schoolteacher—was listed as attending school at least some time in the prior year. By the time of the 1920 census, he would no longer have been attending school anyhow, so the problem I have of not being able to locate his name in that census—likely because, by that time, he was out of the country—would not reveal much to help us. How many years after that 1910 census my grandfather continued his school career is something we can't determine from census records alone.

My grandmother, trailing her husband in age by a few years, was also too old to still be in school at the time of the 1920 census; there, her entry showed us she was employed as a telegrapher for Western Union. The 1910 census was too early to provide us an answer to our question, though it did show she was attending school then.

I take this back-to-school detour simply to point out something we all know but sometimes try to conveniently un-remember: that census records are only as reliable as the people providing the reports to the enumerators, and as reliable as the enumerators are at capturing those reports on paper.

There are, however, ways to work around such dilemmas. One obvious way, of course, is to find other corroborating documentation to verify the answer to our questions. That's why I so strongly believe that the reports we compile of our ancestors in their family tree profiles should rather be seen as a mosaic than a snapshot—seeking out the evidence that can be discerned from examining, for instance, collateral lines as well as direct lines of ancestry.

In the case of those of my relatives whose glowing reputation as high school graduates might have seemed tarnished by a closer examination of the truth, I already knew about the educational circumstances for each of them. I learned it by seeking out stories from family members back when I—and they—had the chance to talk about them.

Though in my dad's case—remember, like his own father, he was the one who didn't like to talk about his family or his past—the stories came from my mother's report of what he had previously told her, I remembered the story about how he dropped out of school, making his dad so angry, not because he was forsaking his education, but because, as a young musician in the big band era, my dad was making more money than his own father.

In my maternal grandmother's situation, I learned about the truth of the matter there, both from my mother's stories and from ephemera tucked away in my grandmother's private papers, which I inherited upon her daughter's death. My grandmother's mother kept her from starting school until she was a year older than the customary starting age, so that both she and her younger brother could attend school together; thus, at the other end of her educational career, my grandmother did indeed graduate high school—but she was almost twenty when she received her diploma.

In my maternal grandfather's case, I still have next to nothing to base any guesses upon. Though I couldn't find him in the 1920 census, I do have a record showing his arrival back from Honduras, where he had gone to live with his older, school-teacher sister and her husband. I also know that his childhood residence offered plenty of job opportunities with the railroad, which would have been more tempting than book-learnin' for a teenager in east Tennessee. Perhaps he, as did my dad, opted for a job rather than further education. Though it was partially a family tie that brought him to Honduras, he did also go on account of his work experience.

Of course, not all family stories are gospel truth, either—all the more reason for proceeding with our family history research with a good dose of skepticism and the perseverance to look up supporting references from not just one...or even two...but many different resources. Even if what we started with was a census record.

Genealogy by Locality Immersion

Whenever I come upon a new chapter in my genealogical pursuits, I try to immerse myself in the place where I'll be researching. To track the paths my Tilson and Davis families took through the generations, that means I'll be spending time acquainting myself with the southwestern frontier of Virginia.

Some states are easy to research—particularly those where the researcher has lived, for instance, or those frequented while visiting a family member over the years. Others, however, present challenges when they are both unknown territories and places where the researcher has little chance to travel. Virginia, for me, is one of those places. I've only set foot in the place once in my life (that I know of), and that was only to make a stop at Arlington National Cemetery on a high school bus tour heading to our nation's capital. Other than that dim memory, I know little about the state of Virginia—except that a lot of my mother's ancestors once claimed Old Dominion as home.

To learn that, say, my Tilson ancestors once lived in Washington County, Virginia, tells me nothing. I have to look it up on a map. And then to learn that, over the decades, Washington County's boundaries were carved and reshaped and the land my ancestors once inhabited might later have fallen under another county's jurisdiction only stymies this Virginia-challenged researcher even further. Thus the need to add historic maps to my arsenal of necessary tools for research.

When I begin researching new territories, not only do I need these sets of maps and other data about the geography, but I rely heavily on learning by wandering around. In other words, I look up the terms I'm curious about—or have already encountered by venturing out in this new research territory—by googling them and following the links.

Not that I don't already have a protocol for reliable resources to provide initial orientation. My go-to sources for first-glance reviews of places like this new territory of Washington County, Virginia, include Wikipedia entries for the cities and county (including previous counties and subsequent new counties formed), Linkpendium overview for the main county and sub-headings, and FamilySearch.org wiki entries for the same. Of course, I'll also consult Cyndi's List and even the old GenWeb page.

But stretching further by also searching via browsers online helps find the many other resources which don't come up as the first or second choices in a Google search. Some of these discoveries can turn out to be gems, such as this website entry on the cemetery where many related Tilson family members were buried, or this small, privately-created website including data on pioneer families of Washington County.

Of course, I've already worked on this particular stopping place in the saga of the Tilson migration from their New England roots to their early-1800s settlement in Tennessee. But now I need to take a closer look at one specific stop in their journey: their years lived in Washington County—and subsequently Smyth County—in Virginia. In particular, the search now moves to a quest for documentation, whether tax records or church records. The clues I've garnered, thanks to the uniquely-named Saint Clair's Bottom Primitive Baptist Cemetery where several Tilson family members were buried, may indeed provide me a resource for further information on my branch of that family.

Taking the South: the Strategy

When devising a research plan, I'm accustomed to limited perspectives. "Research the Kelly line" or "get ready for that research trip to Fort Wayne" are typical, short-range plans I come up with.

In tackling my southern roots, especially in preparation for the SLIG class on southern research I'll be attending next January, I've got to expand my horizons. Why? In my case, it's not just a matter of researching one surname, or one line out of many. Thanks to my mother's family history, every line leads to a root in the south. Her paternal line involved a migration trek through colonial Virginia to settle in Tennessee, with a possible link to North Carolina, as well. Her maternal lines were in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, and elsewhere, also stretching back to colonial times.

It's one thing to learn how to expertly research a state. But in this case, we're talking about learning how to research an entire region—from the northern border of Maryland to the islands at the southern end of Florida, and from the tip of Cape Hatteras all the way to the endless domain of Texas.

That's a lot of learning.

The funny thing is, I've got kin in almost all of those places. And some of those folks have been making it pretty hard for me to find them.

It takes a plan to outfox those recalcitrant ancestors. And a strategy to step up my game from its status quo level of progress. For the past few years, my plan (other than for specific research trips) has been to move through all the branches of my family tree and add about one hundred documented ancestors or their collateral lines per week. Granted, now that process will be revised to focus specifically on only my maternal southern lines until I complete next January's class. But I need to do more than just "focus." I need some specific details to guide me.

A typical approach I've taken has been to regularly review my DNA matches to ascertain which family line can claim these hundreds of matches. While I've been contacting about one to two matches per week—some with gracious answers returned, some with nothing but silence—this is certainly no way to scale a mountain the size of my match lists. I've used some tools at GEDmatch.com and DNAGedcom—hey, I've even dabbled with DNA Painter—but I need to bite the bullet and learn how to master Genome Mate Pro.

Also, for the next six months, I need to organize a spreadsheet with all DNA match information, including notes from contacts, and which matches can be corresponded to which family lines. I think it would be great to just pull up a report of all the DNA matches across testing companies, for, say, my McClellan line. There is so much time frittered away, simply going back to look up one detail from one company, then jumping to details from another company. Streamlining the process, across all testing repositories, will help conserve time.

Most of all, though, my strategy needs to include the basic tactic of pushing each southern family line back as far in time as I can go through online resources. For families whose roots reach back to the 1600s here, it does me no good to stop at an ancestor living in the 1800s. There are still many lines I've not attended to, since stopping for lack of progress on their research when I last reviewed them ten years ago. So much has changed in online access to records in just the past year or so that it pays to review all these abandoned research lines to probe for fresh access to documentation. That will need to have its own plan for systematic review.

So, who am I looking for? I've got the Davis and Laws lines in Tennessee, both of which have me stuck in the early 1800s. I've got the Tilson line in Tennessee, which I know came from Mayflower origins in Massachusetts via Virginia—but how? I've got the Boothe line, also in Tennessee, from Nansemond County in Virginia, where I'm also stuck in the early 1800s. Likewise the Rileys, another early Tennessee family, supposedly from North Carolina in the late 1700s.

My maternal grandmother's Florida roots don't make life any easier. I've got McClellan, Charles, Tison and Sheffield who supposedly arrived there from North Carolina and Georgia, but how? I have yet to find out.

Many of these families are rich in history yet difficult to find, thanks to their status as early interlopers on the American frontier. My hope is that, with the many additions to online resources in the past few years, a fresh look at each of these lines will yield promising results. And for those mysteries still remaining, well, isn't that why I'm taking that research class at SLIG? One way or another, at the end of this campaign, these research strategies should yield me some helpful material—and help me figure out just how all those mystery DNA matches connect.

Welcome to Fall: Now, Start Cleaning

Everyone talks about spring cleaning, but it isn't often I hear any mention of fall cleaning—at least not around here in "sunny" California. This season, however, I think I'm ready to do some fall cleaning, despite the blue skies and lingering balmy temperatures.

Back east, where I grew up, there was a definite list of fall cleaning tasks to do before the winter set in. That included everything from washing the windows after taking down the screens to make way for that second set of storm windows, to getting everything spruced up before the beginning of winter holidays. Some tasks were fun, of course, simply owing to the anticipation of good times ahead. Others were jobs that simply needed to be done to get ready for the howling winds, rainstorms and snow that could arrive as early as mid-October.

With sunshine and a high of eighty five predicted here for today, it's not likely I'll be spending this Saturday on such grunt work, though. However, for the coming month, I want to set up a plan for a different kind of fall cleaning: cleaning out my decades worth of genealogical records. We're already in a decluttering mood here at Chez Stevens, so why not add that massive obligation to the cleaning list?

I realize that is a rhetorical question, but there are actually some reasons why I haven't already done a genealogical cleanup. Foremost among them is the fact that the thrill of the hunt is much more alluring than the tedium of the aftermath. With the number of ancestors to research doubling with each successive generation, there is always an elusive relative taunting me from behind the firewall of yet another online research repository.

Second is the situation of the constantly changing database storage scenario. When I first started researching, I could house the records I found in notebooks. Then folders in file cabinet drawers. Then boxes in storage. Then, with the dawn of the magic of digital record keeping, on a desktop-resident program (like, in my case, FamilyTreeMaker). Then, even easier, online via programs at Ancestry or FindMyPast or MyHeritage. Each new option had its pluses—and also its downside. Each new option also demanded its own time sync in the form of a steep learning curve and requirements for upkeep. I kept tap dancing to keep up—while scattering the litter of bygone records management tools in my wake.

As I stall out on my latest ancestral quest—that of seeking my migrating Broyles, Davis and Tilson lines heading through colonial Virginia—I think I'll put all new research projects on hold and see if I can take a month to sort out some very old documents and decide which ones to keep, which ones to toss, and which ones to follow up on. I'll revisit that trio of mysterious migrants later, but for the month of October, I'll be in search of some ideas for organizing what I've already gleaned from several decades of genealogical fun. 

Above: "Hook Mountain on the Hudson River," 1867 landscape by American artist Sanford Robinson Gifford; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

If Not Why, Perhaps How

As I'm struggling with the brick wall in my family history research, I've wanted to learn just why it was that the descendants of my Mayflower ancestors would have left their by-then-established settlement in Massachusetts to move to the backwoods of Virginia in 1763—and then pick up once again and relocate in northeastern Tennessee.

Just because I want to know the answer doesn't necessarily mean I will find the answer. After the journey I've been on to seek out that answer, the corresponding trip through local history of that era has convinced me that perhaps a more helpful question might be how those ancestors moved beyond their Virginia settlement to their stopping place in Washington County, Tennessee.

Googling and then following my nose has unearthed several helpful sites in this information gathering stage. I already knew that the area in question was once part of a place in the state of North Carolina dubbed the Washington District. After Tennessee statehood, that same location became the "mother county"—the oldest county—of the new state.

I've located lists that serve as finding aids to guide me to further resources as I try to sift through the details and determine just why—and how—my ancestors from Massachusetts eventually ended up in Washington County, Tennessee. Of course, the FamilySearch wiki for Washington County genealogical resources provides many links. Interestingly, so does the Tennessee Secretary of State's website, with two pages providing a list of resources and a more detailed bibliography.

Shifting my focus—rather than looking at what I could find about my ancestors' destination, checking what is available about the land they left—I found a website explaining the history of the old Washington County region of Virginia which contained the Holston River area where my Tilsons once lived.

Better yet, I located a page which explained why settlement in these far-west locations was urged: the government of colonial Virginia saw it as a great scheme for creating a "buffer zone" between more-established immigrant communities in the eastern portion of the colony and the ancient wilderness domain of native populations. To that end, by the 1740s, the government was authorizing land grants, such as the Patton Grant and the Loyal Company Grant.

Having located those resources, I began adding to my reading list. I've found a couple other online articles to read about the westward settlement, back in that era—one of which focuses on southwestern Virginia, the other on a more general review of settlement west of the Blue Ridge mountains.

But this was back in the 1740s. When I think of what must have been available to settlers back then, that's when my mind demands to know just how they managed to do what they did. How did they get to their destination? How did they even decide on that destination? For my Tilson, Davis, and Broyles ancestors, what brought them down the path they selected? In fact, what was the path?

Wondering about "how" led me to seek out articles on the way those ancestors got to their new home. That's when I started circling the details on one particular route, known by various names, but generally called the Wilderness Road. I decided it might be worth my while to see if that Wilderness Road was the route that might have led my wandering ancestors to the promise of better land that they might have been seeking. 

Clustering Data

When it comes to trying to align my three families who converged on that tiny spot in northeastern Tennessee, I've been at a lack for connecting the dots. There is no question, though, that my Davis, Tilson and Broyles ancestors all ended up in Washington County, Tennessee. It's just a question of when—and, preceding that, how.

Just exploring what I've been able to find online, tucked away in various genealogical nooks and crannies, just this past month, I discovered that my Broyles ancestors may have been in Tennessee even before they showed up in South Carolina. I never could quite understand why my second great grandfather Thomas Broyles left his childhood home in the Pendleton District of South Carolina to live in the comparatively remote other side of the mountains in Tennessee. Now, it appears it may have been because the family had property over there first.

These things may not be items that we can just discover by the brute force of researching everything there is to find about late 1700s Virginia and Tennessee. I'm convinced there has got to be a handier way to uncover clues.

I know that in DNA research, when there is a puzzling match between two distant cousins, one way to seek a solution to the question of how they relate is to gather all the data and look for connections. The theory is, for people to relate, someone from one side of the family had to be in the same place at the same time as someone from the other side of the family.

Yes, I know: this is not rocket science. But sometimes the obvious needs to smack us in the face before we put it to good use. If that technique has come in handy for determining possible scenarios for DNA matches, perhaps clustering data can serve to encourage clues to percolate up through the piles of names and dates swamping me now.

Not that I'm looking forward to building a database of where and when everyone lived in the same location—that's grunt work for sure. But if it yields any results, it will be worth the effort.

Though my eyes have been opened to possibilities on the Broyles side of the equation, for the Davis line, I haven't even been able to connect my line in Tennessee to their origins across the state line. My third great grandfather, James C. Davis, was born in 1795. Though I can find a given name for his mother, thanks to her having survived until at least the 1850 census—at least, I presume that ninety year old Davis woman in James' household is his mother—I don't know his father's name.

Nor can I determine for sure where those Davis ancestors were born. Why did the enumerator have to scrawl something that looks like it could simultaneously represent "VA" and "NC"? This is not helping.

These are some reasons why I just need to isolate specific fields for several people in the family, then check what subsequent census records say—then, go and do the same for everyone else in this family grouping.

For instance, in that same 1850 census, the household included someone with the name William Tilson. Tilson, of course, is the third surname I'm seeking in this northeastern Tennessee settlement. Since James' wife Rachel was a Tilson, and since she had a brother by that name and of that approximate age, it is likely he was the extra person in the Davis household. Why was he living there? Where was he born? And what brought him to this place?

The answers to some questions are not always supplied as one-liners. Some answers take a lot of sifting through extraneous material before they become visible. Clustering the data builds the mound that allows us to begin that sifting process. Perhaps that is a way to shortcut the need to research on site in Tennessee. At least, since I won't be traveling there any time soon, I can always hope.

Googling for Genealogical Gold

Though they still have to be vetted for accuracy, one hundred year old genealogies can be a thrill for a researcher who just found a pertinent surname within its covers. That's how things are going for me now, as I compare the notes from two Broyles family researchers with the documentation accessible online today.

That sort of grunt work doesn't play out well in blog posts. So let's switch things up. Kind of like a three ring circle, I'm bouncing between work on the Broyles family of South Carolina and eastern Tennessee, the Davis family of North Carolina and that same spot in eastern Tennessee, and the Tilson family of Virginia (and then that same spot in eastern Tennessee) which promises to lead me back to Mayflower Society eligibility. Where the three collide, I'm hoping to find documentation to either confirm or deny my suspicions—well, for now, let's just call them my hypotheses.

Since I've already scoured applicable online resources for old genealogy publications, I need to search in the other direction, too. Every day brings additions to the various online resources we now use for genealogical research—but how to find them? Mainstays of digital genealogy like FamilySearch or Ancestry are such go-to websites that they become the first—and sometimes the only—resources of significance offered up for additional inspection.

I'm really not satisfied to rely only on those resources. I want more. So I head to Google, choose my keywords carefully, and start searching. There are literally hundreds of genealogical hidey-holes where yesterday's random-actors-for-genealogical-kindness parked their special tidbits. While inconvenient in and of themselves—some of these web resources may be old typewritten lists parked on the back lots of outdated sites like the old Rootsweb or somewhere in the GenWeb system—if the one which has your precious data is part of that byzantine maze, wouldn't you want to find it?

And so I go through my list of synonyms and surnames, typing them into the dialog box at Google and hoping something on page two or three of the results will contain just what I'm looking for.

I say page two or three, because I know how search engine optimization can skew results to serve up the most popular sites first. And those popular sites are precisely the ones I don't want to see. Why? Because I've already reviewed that material while I was working on those big sites like Ancestry or FamilySearch. Remember, I want something more.

This is a messy process, to be sure. Tedious. And void of any guarantees. But if something comes up, I'm ecstatic. Remember, I'm only doing this because I can't find the material I want anywhere else online. And I sure can't drop everything else this morning and catch the nearest flight to Tennessee.

One of my research questions right now is to figure out just how the Davis and Tilson families met up. Remember, I don't know the parents' names for Mayflower direct descendant Rachel Tilson's husband, James Davis. I'm not even super sure about the details I've received from others about this guy—that he was born in 1795 in "Washington County," North Carolina.

Remember, along the migratory pathways for all three families—Davis, Tilson, and Broyles—converging in Washington County, northeastern Tennessee shortly after this time, there was also a Washington County in Virginia and one in North Carolina. And that one in North Carolina wasn't even where the current Washington County is located today. Due to the geopolitical situation of the era, that James Davis who was born in Washington County, North Carolina, and who died in Washington County, Tennessee, could have been a man who was born and died in the very same place.

So, I went exploring on Google. My main question was to find any material on the history of that old Washington County in Virginia—the one where that Holston Valley region had a pre-Revolutionary church called the Saint Clair's Bottom Primitive Baptist Church. I wanted to find some contact information for a historian or someone knowledgeable about that location, prior to 1800.

In the nooks and crannies of the Internet, it is only Google which can ferret out these tucked away gems, and in my searching, I found one. It is now known as the Gordon Aronhime Papers, and they are housed in a collection called the Southwest Virginia Card File at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

Every now and then, you can run across the collections of people like Gordon Aronhime. They are dedicated researchers who set about to systematically document everything there is to know about a very tiny sliver of the universe of human knowledge. In Mr. Aronhime's case, that sliver was focused on the upper Holston-Clinch River area of southwest Virginia during the years from 1770 to 1795.

The entire body of knowledge preserved by Gordon Aronhime is kept on a set of over four thousand index cards, now scanned and available online at the Library of Virginia. The data include dates of birth and death, marriage information, lists of some children, abstracts of wills and some other biographical data. Because the information was handwritten on the cards, it employed a shorthand system of descriptors, so the collection includes a listing of abbreviations commonly used in the collection.

In addition, since a good number of the settlers in this area later migrated to nearby northeastern Tennessee, the collection includes a listing of several of these men, as well as listings on local forts, mills, ministers—and even some details on the 1780 Battle of King's Mountain.

That wasn't the only discovery I made while exploring the lesser-known sites discussing the topic of my current interest. Deep within the pages of the Virginia GenWeb site, I found a listing of marriages from Washington County, dated 1782 to 1820. Sure enough, looking at the alphabetized entries for the letter "T," I found several marriages for my Tilson family—although nothing of interest for my Davis ancestor.

No problem with that, though. The search is far from over. Just knowing that these hidden nuggets are out there to be found—with diligence and lots of patience—encourages me to keep trying my hand at googling those search terms.

Above: Sample card from the Gordon Aronhime Papers at the Library of Virginia shows entries for my fourth great-grandfather, Peleg Tilson, including details on his marriage, land transactions and removal to Washington County, Tennessee.

One Way to Keep That Forward Momentum

I recently read a blogger who mentioned that, unlike others who periodically choose a book to read, he usually kept a collection of five or six volumes on his active reading list. He would bounce between books according to mood. Sometimes, it was fiction that took his fancy. Other times, when he wasn't quite up to industrial-strength intellectual pursuits, perhaps he'd turn to an autobiography.

Eventually, he'd finish the entire collection and move on; he didn't find the segmentation of his reading list to be distracting in the least. That way, he matched his reading interest to his current energy level and point of fascination. It kept him reading through his book bucket list, instead of getting stuck at a boring impasse in the middle of his sole selection.

Perhaps it may seem like my blogging style is matching that person's reading style. While I'm grinding away at making genealogical sausage, I'm flitting from one discovery to another. Then the roadblock looms, and I switch research tracks. Again.

I admit it must seem difficult to follow such jagged story lines. But I also realize how tedious it can be to read the blow-by-blow of the research process. Then, too, stuff is popping up while other stories languish: a text from Ireland brings me a photo of that little lost photo album making its way home after eighty years; a cousin re-surfaces after years to connect over DNA testing. While I'm stymied in the research doldrums, refreshing breezes like these are a welcome change.

And so the pattern continued this past weekend as I received a response to a chance message I had sent by Facebook. In the hunch that this social media site is now where genealogical connections are happening, I had sent a message to a fellow Davis researcher whom I hadn't contacted for years. Maybe decades. Having spotted her name in a book on the very area where descendants of my potential Mayflower connection may have settled in Tennessee, I thought I'd chance connecting by Facebook.

Just a few days ago, my hunch was confirmed: she answered my message. Even better, she informed me that she had completed her application for membership in the Mayflower Society, herself—the very goal I was wanting to discuss with her. The good news was: she was accepted into the Society. What's more, she's willing to help me get all my documentation in order, as well.

This is the kind of stuff that generates a genealogical happy dance. We share a common ancestor just four generations removed from me. Bringing the documentation forward from my second great grandfather Thomas D. Davis, who died in 1892, should be rather straightforward. It's all the twists and turns to carry me from his mother, Mayflower descendant Rachel Tilson Davis in Tennessee, back to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of Plymouth Colony, that I'm concerned about.

There's always been something about working with a friend on a project of interest. Not that I couldn't do the work alone, but the encouragement of someone who has already been down this road is helpful. Not to mention, it's always fun to meet a new cousin—especially someone who understands just what it is about this genealogical research that makes our eyes light up. Meeting up with a cousin like that is a double bonus.

Revisiting Reconnecting

So I'm stumped on my pursuit of records for my Davis-Tilson lines in Tennessee, without which I likely won't obtain my goal of membership in the Mayflower Society.

No problem. I'm still gaining lots from the process. Even twists and turns and "bad" outcomes can be learning experiences. I'm not about to cheat myself out of a full delivery of the goods.

One of the twists plopped into my lap while I was sitting at the computer, writing yesterday's blog post. While taking a detour onto my Facebook page, up popped up a personal message from a cousin. She had a question about DNA.

Now, you know me: if you want to talk about DNA, I'm there. In this case, for a ninety minute phone call.

It was good to reconnect. We caught up on family news and compared notes on the uses of DNA testing. (In her case, terms like Y-DNA, mtDNA, and admixtures applied not to people but to horses—she breeds Arabian horses, some of which she's delivered around the world. But the vocabulary and the usage is basically equivalent.)

The conversation reminded me of the importance of getting back to talking to the family we are researching. To be technical, this phone call was actually with my first cousin once removed. She lives on the other side of the country from me, and it's probably been over twenty years since I last visited her. Until we connected on Facebook a few years back, our only mode of conversation was infrequent—albeit always long—emails.

In the wake of this unexpected and welcome interlude, my thoughts on my research dilemma turned in that same direction: toward the act of reconnecting. That reminded me of an era before mega-sites of genealogical pursuit became prevalent.

Back then, there was a culture among family historians of connecting and sharing. Genealogical societies would collect historic data and publish them in books, or host seminars. They'd welcome "queries" from members—and even non-members, for a modest charge—and share them in their newsletters and journals.

In the early days of the Internet, we had ListServs. As the technology of connection advanced, we moved, along with everyone else, to bulletin boards and message boards—it's just that back then, we used the technology to talk about our mutual genealogical brick walls and to crowdsource the solutions to those research problems.

By the time businesses (and, in one important exception, a nonprofit entity) brought us the one-click-discovers-all online genealogical wonder worlds, our behavior had been reshaped. Those of us who had been around to remember those old days of mailing in our "queries" to local genealogical societies—along with our five bucks to have the note published in their newsletter—had now become accustomed to finding all that stuff on our own. In our jammies. At three in the morning. Because, Look! That's my seventh great grandmother!

It might do us all good to remember those olden days of research before the advent of one-click-does-all. While I'd never advocate retreating to a world without Ancestry or FindMyPast or MyHeritage or any of the myriad other online genealogical services, I realize there is a lesson to be learned from the community that sprang up around our research limitations.

We helped one another. We valued the exchange of information, person to person. We connected. With each other.

Here I am—I've always been an advocate for connecting with other researchers and not doing genealogy by only flying solo—and I forgot this important principle. In this case of needing to find information on some small but very old communities on the far end of Tennessee, I even forgot that I had—back in that era of interconnection predating the interconnectivity of the Internet—made connections with some distant Davis cousins. These were people whom I could likely benefit from, if I could only reconnect with them now.

I am beginning to see how important it is to know our roots—not just the roots of our families, but the roots of us, as family historians. The way we were can provide some valuable lessons to us, as we are now. To understand where we came from, as a body of researchers, benefits us by allowing us to glean insight from what worked in the past. By reconnecting with the beneficial aspects of our research roots and bringing them forward into our milieu now, we blend the good points of past lessons learned with the best of what technology has to offer us now. The resulting mix may be just what we need to strengthen us as a community.