Certainty Without Documentation

 

It's the end of another month, and I'm ready to grumble. My goal for this month was to break through the brick wall keeping me from discovering my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson's parents. Though I've become weary with reading the scribbled handwriting in court records, I've yet to find any documentation to confirm what others have asserted in either today's online resources or the published reports of past generations. 

That tour of the documents has brought me through Pitt County in North Carolina, Beaufort County in South Carolina, and Wayne and Glynn Counties in Georgia—not to mention that detour to follow his wife's genealogy back to her Sheffield grandfather in Duplin County, North Carolina. Though it was not lost upon me that Pitt County was once known as Beaufort County, North Carolina—a possible source of confusion for researchers—I have not unearthed one document on Job Tyson's related family lines which could point me backwards in time, with the possible exception of his father-in-law West Sheffield's 1830 will.

Yet, in reviewing genealogies which include this family, I notice how certain those reports sound about their assertions concerning Job's roots. How do so many people seem to know this? If they have found a source to support that published information, it would help to be able to review such records. 

With the last day of this short month drawing closer, I doubt I'll find any success in continuing the search in such a limited time. As we complete this week, we'll lay aside this research goal and check in on a few other projects which I've been working on, behind the scenes, from earlier this year.

There Just Might be a Reason

 

Sometimes, a family history research problem seems like it has gifted us a one-way ticket on a tight loop. Around and around we go, never seeming to find an answer—not even a hint to break us loose of this endless search. That's the way it's been this month, trying to discover any clues about Job Tyson's origins.

It dawned on me that there just might be a reason for this lack of information on my fourth great-grandfather—a reason which should have occurred to me earlier. What if Job emerged from what later became known as a burned county?

There are, of course, several counties across the United States which have been considered, at one time or another, to be burned counties. I took a look at brief notes at the FamilySearch Wiki for the two counties I found mentioned concerning Job Tyson's roots. Pitt County, the North Carolina jurisdiction mentioned in the genealogies I found regarding Job's daughter-in-law's Hardee line, happens to be one of those burned counties. So is Beaufort County of South Carolina, where I found an entry in the 1790 census for Job Tison near the household of someone named Aaron Tison. 

That, however, doesn't call this search a lost cause. There are other ways to piece together an ancestor's story. FamilySearch.org offers alternative strategies, not just in the many record sets which have been digitized in that online resource, but through a helpful guide concerning what can be done next.

Once again, this may point me back to that old genealogical research friend, the F.A.N. Club, in seeking any more clues about where Job Tyson originated. Perhaps my next step might be to wonder just who that Aaron Tison was who appeared alongside Job in the 1790 census. Traveling partner? Relative? Future Georgia resident? It might help to keep an eye on this associate. Who knows? He may also be family.

Exploring the Back Stories

 

We're halfway through the month, and so far I've been unable to find any solid connection between my fourth great-grandfather Job Tyson and either possible location of his birth. Lacking any further leads—at least until yesterday's discoveries—I decided it was time to explore collateral lines for any sign of the Tyson/Tison back story.

That's essentially what has been happening behind the scenes over the past two weeks: looking for the back story. Since today was time for my biweekly count, I was surprised to see what an impact that effort could make. All during the time I was writing about not finding any documentation to connect Job Tyson to either North or South Carolina—two alternate possibilities for his roots—I've been exploring the ThruLines connections to the Tyson family and building a line of descent for each of those collateral relatives.

What was the result for this two weeks of grunt work? I actually added 263 more documented individuals to my family tree, all from this Tyson line descending from Job and his wife, Sidnah Sheffield. That pushes the tree's total to 41,574. Bringing a family's history down to the present time from a point on the timeline spanning over 225 years can add a lot of names—and I'm nowhere close to being done.

The test results blossoming from holiday DNA tests are now finally hitting my count, as well. I've gained ten more matches at Ancestry DNA, more than my usual one or two for each biweekly stretch. Though it doesn't help my focus for this month's candidate for my Twelve Most Wanted, I also found a Zegarski match to my father's side of the family tree. I'll be watching for more from the Tyson or Tison side of the story as the rest of these holiday tests keep appearing in my results. Likewise for every other company where I've tested.

Meanwhile, though I'm not researching anyone on my in-laws' side of the family, once again that tree grew by one additional name, thanks to follow up work after a phone call from a relative. It's so exciting to see younger members of the family taking interest in the details of their own family history, especially when they, too, are awaiting DNA test results and want to know how they connect to the bigger picture.  

Catch Them if you Can

 

Perhaps this is just my unlucky day. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my missing ancestor, Job Tyson, back in what was supposed to be his old stomping grounds. The tip was that he might have been seen in the old Beaufort District of South Carolina, since my attempt at snagging him in Pitt County, North Carolina, had left me empty-handed.

Granted, that last sighting would have been sometime between 1790 and the early years of the 1800s, when Job Tyson settled down in Glynn County, Georgia. But even though I could find mention of someone by that name in North Carolina, the dates and circumstances just didn't line up. I had to follow the lead of some clues, no matter how weak they might have been. When it comes to chasing brick wall ancestors, you try to catch them—wherever—if you can.

First, I tried searching for Job Tyson in Beaufort District, South Carolina. I selected as wide a date range as possible, just in case he needed to return home to clear up any legal business, long after his departure for Georgia. Though I performed my search on the FamilySearch Full Text Search, I found no results.

Yes, I also needed to try my search using the alternate spelling for his surname: Tison. Again, no results.

Then, remembering the disjointed history of the Beaufort District—first it was, then it wasn't, a geopolitical division—I tried changing the label on the specific location to see if I could get any better results. According to one website, the designation of the Beaufort District—actually, all Districts in South Carolina—was abolished in 1800, and replaced by its four underlying counties: Granville, Hilton, Lincoln, and Shrewsbury. 

Back to the Full Text Search I went, this time searching for Job Tyson—or Tison—using each of the four new county designations, just in case. Nothing.

As a last-ditch effort, I also tried searching in each of those South Carolina locations for Charles McClellan, who eventually became a witness to Job Tyson's will in Georgia. Again, nothing.

My only consolation could be that not everyone faithfully remains in the same location for over ten years, so as to ensure their appearance in the subsequent decennial census enumeration. Perhaps our Job Tyson was one of those people, continually on the road until he finally found a place he could call home.

Juggling and Genealogy

 

Genealogy can be a juggling act, and my current obsession with the roots of Job Tyson has put me squarely in that category. I've been searching for my fourth great-grandfather's parents and birthplace, bouncing back and forth between several resources. Behind the scenes, I'm still grinding my way through a long list of DNA matches from the Tyson line. I've tapped the supercharged capabilities of FamilySearch's Full Text Search to find legal records. And I've relinquished hopes of finding Job, as supposed by others, in Pitt County, North Carolina and I've begun looking elsewhere.

I've also been hopping between online genealogy resources. And that's where I discovered something: depending on deciphering capabilities, one company's search engine might not snag the same details from handwritten documents as another company might.

Case in point (conveniently for me, involving our Job Tyson's story): the 1790 census. As you likely presumed, any forms used by enumerators for the first-ever United States census had to be hand-drawn as well as completed by hand. So searching for details on what information was included in such a tally might make the example from the National Archives seem deceiving. You'd have to scroll to the bottom of the census form posted on their website to read, "The U.S. Government did not furnish uniform printed schedules until 1830."

More pertinent to our situation was this information provided on the FamilySearch blog, stating the main categories covered in the nation's first population survey. The most glaring detail was the very length of the list: only six categories. Put simply, the 1790 census sought to gather data on who was eligible for military duty, should the need arise again. Questions included:

• Name of head of household
• Household's count of free white males 16 years of age or older
• Household's free white males under 16
• Household's free white females
• Any other free persons in the household
• Number of enslaved persons in the household

Of course, one of the hazards of preserving historic content over the centuries has been to keep it preserved, no matter how long it has been in existence. Every family historian has encountered those groan-worthy moments when we discover that some records simply haven't made it through the ravages of time.

Such has been the case with the 1790 census with returns of some states, some of which the United States Census Bureau has noted were destroyed by fires during the War of 1812. Happily, two states of interest in our pursuit of Job Tyson were not among those listed as lost by the Census Bureau.

One of those states, of course, was North Carolina, where some researchers had posited that Job Tyson once lived in Pitt County. And while I've found mention of many men with that surname—or its variant spelling, Tison—in Pitt County records, I've recently been exploring records from a second state: South Carolina.

Remembering last week's exploration of the friends and associates of Job Tison in his later years when he lived and died in Glynn County, Georgia, I'm just now beginning to connect the dots between Job and a man whose name had appeared on the Tison will, Charles McClellan. While my McClellan line also has me stumped as to their origins, I have verified that this was the Charles McClellan who was in my direct line. And I can see that there was a good possibility that the McClellans once lived in South Carolina. Might they have met up with Job at that location before they all moved to Georgia?

While I was unable to find Job Tyson in the 1790 census when I searched for him at Ancestry.com, checking FamilySearch.org yielded a surprising result: there was a Job Tison listed in the Beaufort District of South Carolina. That was the same location I've seen attributed to my McClellan line, as well.

The census entries seemed to be roughly alphabetized, and just a few lines below Job's entry was another Tison entry for someone named Aaron. Both heads of household had the same numerical entries listed next to their name: one male sixteen or over, one female member of the household, and one enslaved person. Whether Job and Aaron were brothers or cousins, I don't yet know, but at least this gives me some guidance as to where else to seek my Tyson line in those earlier years. I now have another category to add to my genealogy juggling act. 

Image above: 1790 U.S. Census entry for two Tison households in Beaufort District, South Carolina, courtesy of FamilySearch.org.

How Young is "Young"?

 

I confess: I'm getting impatient with Job Tyson's descendants. As I go, relative by relative through my Tyson DNA matches, I am not finding any who can shed light on Job's own origin. I even got impatient enough to try tracing his father-in-law's DNA matches, since West Sheffield was also said to have originated in the same colony as Job: North Carolina. When that yielded no guidance, I turned to my last resort: a visit to FamilySearch's Full Text Search to find any sign of Job Tyson—or Tison—in Pitt County, North Carolina.

Whether you consider the result of that search a success or not depends on how you might define the term, "young."

My first search result, looking for a Job Tyson in Pitt County, was for a legal notice in a Raleigh newspaper. In fact, that 1808 report seemed helpful in that it spelled out the names of several Tison family members, as such legal battles often do. But was it my Job Tison? I couldn't be sure, so I kept looking.

Eventually the Full Text Search results pointed me to an old history book, Henry T. King's 1911 work, Sketches of Pitt County. The book explained that "Deserters and Royalists who were too active" were often confined to local jails. Such was the case with the Pitt County jail. At that point, I ran into a curious entry:

Job Tyson, a young man, who had enlisted, after the fall of Charlestown, for the defense of the State, accepted a parole from Lord Cornwallis, when he passed through. Becoming uneasy for his safety, he fled to South Carolina, and not knowing, could not avail himself of the proclamations of conditional pardon. Having never taken up arms against the State, when he returned many of the most prominent citizens of the county petitioned Governor Burke for his pardon, which was no doubt granted. 

Was that our Job Tison? I had to look further.

Full Text Search had me covered. There was another entry among my search results. In volume sixteen of the transcribed State Records of North Carolina, was a legal entry. Addressed to His Excellency, Thomas Burke, Governor of the State of North Carolina, the petition read,

The inhabitants of Pitt County humbly sheweth: That Mr. Job Tyson having taken a parole from Lord Cornwallis...and hath not acted an inimical part against it, so far as to take up arms, but he being young and apprehensive, that his conduct was sufficient to bring him to severe punishment, left this State and went into South Carolina so that he being ignorant of the several proclamations offered to delinquents could not avail himself thereof. 

The petition went on to defend this Job Tyson as someone who had "taken up an active part in defense of this State...when the British first reduced Charlestown." Besides, the petitioners continued, since this Job was "a person intirely [sic] young," if the governor were to accept him back into the fold, the petitioners assured him that Job Tyson would "become a useful member of Society."

Hmmm...the fall of Charlestown? When might that have happened? I had to look that one up. The siege, it turned out, began on March 29, and lasted through May 12, 1780. The petition itself was drawn up in 1782.

Though the petitioners kept stressing the fact that this Job Tyson was "intirely" young and "apprehensive," I wouldn't have thought they were referring to a mere boy. Admittedly, I haven't found any documentation of Job's birthdate, let alone his place of birth. However, several women who applied for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution who were descendants of Job and his wife Sidnah (whose father was a Patriot) have given his year of birth as 1770.

If that 1770 date were correct, that would put our Job into those petitioners' scenario as a ten year old boy, "intirely" young, indeed. While the connection with Pitt County, and even his escape to South Carolina, may be tempting details to fold into our narrative, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept that apprehensive Job Tyson as my ancestor quite yet. 

Onward to search for more documentation. 

 

When Friends Become Family

 

While conducting a search for the friends, associates, and neighbors of a brick wall ancestor may seem rigorous, the effort doesn't seem so daunting when you realize some members of a "F.A.N. Club" eventually become family. As we explore the Georgia men behind the names appearing in Job Tyson's will—and then in the will of West Sheffield—we'll find additional intermingling with that one surname appearing in the Tyson legal documents: McClellan.

Two McClellan men in 1824 witnessed Job Tyson's will. One, whose identity I don't yet know, was named Joseph McClellan—the same name, albeit not the same middle initial, as the McClellan mentioned in West Sheffield's own will. Later in that same year of 1824, Joseph personally appeared in court in Glynn County, Georgia, to confirm that the document in question was indeed the last will of Job Tyson.

The other McClellan man whose signature was affixed to the Tyson will was Charles McClellan, who eventually became father-in-law of Job's daughter Sidnah. Charles thus was my fourth great-grandfather, whose McClellan line has been a focus of my research for years. Researching the extended McClellan family line meant discovering that Charles had a brother, Andrew, who also seemed to move in tandem with Charles over the years, helping to track them back to their supposed origin.

While it is frankly possible to be misled by reporting parties of centuries long gone, all we can do is work to corroborate the reports we find. In the McClellan case, any hopes of finding the brothers in the same pre-Georgia locations as Job Tyson were dashed. When we fast-forward to the 1850 census for the first chance to view such information, Sidnah's husband George McClellan reported his birthplace to be in South Carolina, not the North Carolina location attributed by reports to Job Tyson.

In fact, I was able to find entries in the 1800 census for two households—one for George's father Charles, the other for Charles' brother Andrew—in the Orangeburg District of South Carolina. It took a lot of exploring to find anyone related to this F.A.N. club who was connected to a North Carolina origin. That family was headed by Jacob Highsmith, who was father-in-law of Andrew McClellan. Andrew's wife Sarah was said to have been born in Pitt County, North Carolina. Indeed, turning to the 1800 census for Pitt County, there was Sarah's father Jacob Highsmith heading the top of this page in the record.

Since we're now in the neighborhood, I couldn't help but take a look at the Tison entries there. Sure enough, there were plenty of Tisons in Pitt County in 1800, including that one I had previously mentioned, for "Joab" Tison. Same as our Job? Hard to tell at this point. I'd still like to find more details on Job's origin before presuming we have found our answer.

With a Little Help From his Friends

 

If we can't pinpoint the origin of a distant ancestor through the information usually provided in more modern times, perhaps we can get a little help from his friends in determining the family's history. When it comes to my fourth great-grandfather Job Tison—a.k.a. Job Tyson—I've heard stories, but I haven't been able to verify them as facts. It's time to reach out to examine a second point of view: the clues we can find through the friends, associates, and neighbors of our mystery ancestor.

In Job Tison's case, it seems he spent most of his adult life in Glynn County, Georgia. Certainly by 1820, his name appeared—as Job "Tyson"—in the Glynn County census, but that was only a few years before he drew up his will.

His will, as it turns out, provided us with two names of trusted associates: Charles McClellan and J. H. McClellan, whose name later in the document was rendered as Joseph H. McClellan. These two McClellan men became the witnesses of Job Tyson's will, with Joseph appearing in court on September 21, 1824, to testify concerning the decedent's last testament.

Conveniently for us as we research the extended family of Job Tyson, at least Charles McClellan figures in the future history of Job's descendants. Charles, it turns out, was father of George McClellan, who a few years later became husband of Job's daughter Sidnah. 

Charles McClellan, it turns out, lived one county to the south of Job Tyson's wayside inn in Glynn County.  By 1817, his name appeared in headright and bounty documents in Camden County, a Georgia county which at that time formed the southernmost international border between the United States and the Spanish claim to a territory which eventually became the state of Florida. No surprise, then, to see Charles and his family eventually migrate farther south, once that Florida territory became the possession of the United States.

How Charles McClellan became a close enough associate with Job Tyson to be asked to witness his will, I can't say. For our purposes today, though, I was curious to determine just where Charles McClellan might have originated, in case he and Job were associates from a time before their residence in Georgia.

Constructing a family tree for Charles' children—mainly to advance their story to records of a later date to reveal their own places of birth—it was easy to spot the change in the family's location. For the five McClellan children born before Charles received the 1817 authorization to survey his newly-acquired property in Georgia, each child was said to have been born in South Carolina. Even the child born after that point—son Charles in 1819—was a South Carolina native. Only with the birth in 1822 of his next son, Samuel, did the census listings of births switch to Georgia.

Granted, from that 1822 date until Job Tyson's will was drawn up in early 1824 was not much time to develop a new friendship, or even a working relationship. That might suggest that Job Tyson and Charles McClellan knew each other prior to their respective relocations to Georgia. But South Carolina? I've seen people state that Job Tyson's family came from North Carolina. This didn't seem to confirm such a F.A.N. Club notion.

There was, however, another person to turn to in seeking Job's origin. The one pointing the way might have been Job Tyson's own father-in-law, West Sheffield, a Revolutionary War Patriot we'll consider tomorrow.

Perfectly Clear — and Inscrutable

 

How can handwriting be so perfectly clear, and yet not communicate the information we need? That's what had me stuck last week as I puzzled over Rachel Riley Boothe's application for a widow's pension.

Granted, there were some rough spots in the several pages of her application, like the place recording her answer about her husband Alexander Boothe's place of birth. Nancyman? Perhaps that meant Nansemond, a county in Virginia at the time of her 1906 application.

But when it came to a series of questions about her own background, I was both excited to glean more information and equally stymied by the content of her response. The official completing the form used the clearest handwriting for question number three: "When and where were you born and what was your maiden name?" And yet, for the answer about her place of birth, I am at a loss to find the designated location.

While it is obvious that the answer was entered piecemeal, as each section of the information was added. The handwriting for the date of birth and Rachel's maiden name, for instance, seems different—more compressed and smaller than the handwriting that provided the beginning of the answer.

For one thing, while the state name seemed to be misspelled, it is obvious that the answer was South Carolina. However, in retrospect now that we have the resources to view each decennial census, I can't say I am confident of even that answer. For one thing, the earlier census records—1850 and 1860—reported Rachel's place of birth as North Carolina. While anyone's guess is good for the enigmatic entry in the 1870 census, the answer "South Carolina" didn't appear until the 1880 census.

Perhaps it was Alexander himself who provided the answer about his wife's place of birth for those earliest records. An answer like North Carolina would make sense for those living in the northeastern edge of Tennessee, where North Carolina was just over the mountain range. But with the answer Rachel provided on her pension application leading me to a dead end, I wondered whether perhaps even she had gotten the two states mixed up.

The handwriting was so clear on her answer. I enlarged the copy to make sure I was seeing it correctly, though I already knew what I was seeing.

The trouble was, there was no such county by that name in either South Carolina or North Carolina. Remembering that Virginia had some "extinct" counties—after all, that's the case with Alexander's own place of birth, Nansemond County in Virginia—I tried looking for historic names. Remembering "Nancyman," I tried imagining how a county's name might have been spelled phonetically. Still, no clue as to what she meant by her answer. Tobarrass County? Lobarrass? Fobarrass?

Over the weekend, I chatted back and forth with fellow blogger, Charles Purvis of Carolina Family Roots, who offered to help figure out the South Carolina location. Charlie has been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence, and offered to run a few questions through two different systems: Perplexity.AI and ChatGPT.

Based on input regarding the possibility of phonetic spelling coupled with variances in regional accents plus challenges with literacy levels, Perplexity read the entry as "Starrass" and offered a possible answer of Starr, South Carolina. ChatGPT, taking a different approach, noted that the optical character recognition result was distorted but managed to read the entry as "Spartansburg," which obviously would refer to present-day county of Spartanburg.

While further input and refinements would make AI assistance more helpful—not to mention, it's likely a tool which we all could develop skill in using—I can't help but go back to the original document and stare at that crystal clear handwriting, just wondering what the clerk meant when his impeccable handwriting penned that entry. 

Not Out of the Hat

 

The trouble with planning research goals months in advance is that, once the time arrives to do so, we can't just magically pull a genealogical rabbit out of the hat. Sticky research problems that had me stumped last December, when I was outlining plans for my Twelve Most Wanted for 2025, are still just as sticky as they were back then. Sure, I'm optimistic about what new tech tools can do for document retrieval, but if the documents were never digitized—or worse, destroyed by some catastrophe—fancier tools simply will not produce documents which were never there.

Learning that other researchers have not been able to locate a will for John Townsend, presumed father of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend, has been a discouragement. Trying to trace the collateral lines of Delaney's possible family has not proven successful, as far as documentation is concerned. While a descendant of one sibling did apply for membership in the DAR using, among other records, a family Bible, the record was transcribed into the application; there is no actual photocopy of the original record. Keeping in mind that there were at least three Delaney Townsends that I've run across, it would be more reassuring to see the Bible entry itself.

There is, however, one other method to provide a bit more confidence: those 124 DNA matches I'm still reviewing. At this point, I've followed lines of six of the possible siblings of my Delaney to confirm records linking my DNA matches to their ancestral Townsend. While some appear to have documentation problems, most of the matches do line up. But this is not a quick fix to the original problem of having no document to tie all those siblings to the same parents.

And yet, the month is over. With the coming of March, we'll be moving from South Carolina and Florida to mull over another ancestral line with missing documentation, this time in Virginia. We'll meet William Alexander Boothe tomorrow, but for now, wrapping up the question about Delaney could use a to-do list for the next time I revisit her research problem.

First off, finishing the confirmation of each of those DNA matches would help. It's encouraging to see at least one way to demonstrate family connection to this Townsend line. I'm not sure what percentage of successful matches would satisfy my doubt, but if at least fifty percent of the descendants of each presumed Townsend sibling could be confirmed, I'd feel a little less tentative about the connection.

In addition, completing the process of looking at last wills and other documents at each sibling's passing in hopes of finding a sibling identified would be my next step. While the oldest of the presumed Townsends, born in the late 1700s, would not have an obituary written in their honor complete with names of surviving siblings, perhaps among the youngest members of the family, such a remembrance could be found. And looking for signs in wills—such as witnesses to the document or naming of executors—might reveal a brotherly connection.

As I've already witnessed, moving from last year until now, technology has made so many more records accessible and quickly retrievable. It is doubtful I would have found the estate sale inventory for Delaney or the guardianship appointment for her orphaned children without the help of FamilySearch.org Labs' Full Text search. Who knows what tools will be available to us in another couple years?

For now, we'll bid goodbye to my mystery third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend Charles, and all the question I have about whatever became of her. It's time to look at the early life of a second great-grandfather, William Alexander Boothe. Born in 1812 in a now-nonexistent county in Virginia, by 1850 he had lost his wife and moved with his two young sons to a new life—and a new wife—in Tennessee. My task this month will be to see if I can rewind history to uncover documents about those earlier days back in Virginia. My hope is that, even if I can't pull those documents magically out of the hat, so to speak, I'll find a clear research path forward towards discovery.

Time for a Timeline

 

When the detail on a family's situation becomes too messy, perhaps it is time to outline it all in a timeline.  Based on the suggestion—and even that only from a letter written long afterwards by Aunt Fannie—that Light Townsend had traveled down to Florida to help his orphaned nieces, I wanted to see whether I could find any possibility of pinpointing that connection.

In the process—warning: a messy one!—I came to the conclusion that just looking at each individual's circumstances wasn't enough. I needed to blend eight people's timelines into one, so that I could spot any gaps which might be a reasonable time for Light Townsend to travel from his home in Marlboro County, South Carolina, to Madison County in northern Florida.

The brief answer: I don't see how. But let's first look at the particulars. To begin with, here are the players:

Light Townsend, born in South Carolina about 1798, who was the supposed brother of my third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend. Delaney, in turn, while born in South Carolina much later than Light—about 1816—traveled to territorial Florida to marry Andrew Charles in 1841. After the couple's unexpected demise, Andrew's sister, Drucilla Charles, took up the responsibility of serving as guardian for the three orphaned children of Delaney and Andrew, before her marriage to, first, Thomas Hughs Hines, and then Melburn Odum—with each of whom she bore children. It was the two daughters, Frances Charles and Emily (or Emma) Charles, who supposedly traveled back to South Carolina with Light Townsend.

Now, how does all this fit in a timeline? Answer: it's a squeeze.

Let's start off with the 1850 census. Andrew and Delaney were shown in their household with their son and their two daughters, four year old Fanny and one year old Emma. What's interesting about this enumeration is that it was taken on October 16, after Andrew's death, but he was still listed as if alive, on account of the instructions to list the households as they would have appeared on June first of that same year.

In 1850, Light Townsend was at home in Marlboro County, South Carolina, with his wife, four children, and his mother. Drucilla Charles was still living with her mother and siblings in Florida, this being two years before her mother's tragic death, and before her own marriage.

The cascade of events begins with Andrew Charles' apparently unexpected illness and death in July of 1850. Sometime between that point and February of 1852, Delaney herself dies (although I have yet to find any record of that date).

In 1852, Frances, older of the two Charles daughters, would have been about six years of age. Her younger sister Emma, my second great-grandmother, would have been three, having lost her father while still an infant. On February 28 of that year, Andrew's sister Drucilla Charles was appointed guardian of the three orphans, Fanny, Emma, and their brother Rupert Charles. On May 22 of that same year, Drucilla became the wife of Thomas H. Hines, and eventually had two daughters, while presumably continuing to serve as guardian for the Charles orphans.

Sometime between 1857 and 1859, Drucilla's husband Thomas Hines died. This might have been a reasonable time to call in help from the other side of the orphans' family, but in 1858, Light Townsend was having his own woes: his wife died, leaving him with two young daughters of his own. While before this point, it might have made sense for Light to blend the two families—Emma Charles was the same age as Light's daughter Mary Ann, and Light's daughter Amelia was two years older than Fanny Charles—after his wife's death was no time to go traveling long distances through remote regions to help another family. 

Thus, by the 1860 census, it was no surprise to find Light still in South Carolina with his dwindling family, and the Charles orphans with Drucilla, who, widowed, had by then married Melburn Odum and welcomed in their baby daughter Maybelle. 

The years following the 1860 census might seem like the ideal opportunity for Light to travel to Florida, particularly considering the more appropriate ages of his nieces for such an adventure back to South Carolina with him. In 1860, Fanny would have turned fourteen and Emma eleven. But even then, the timeline shoved roadblocks in the way of such a plan—not to mention, a ravaging war.

After the death of her mother, Light's daughter Amelia married in 1863. Light's younger daughter Mary Ann married William Kinney in 1867, becoming the progenitor of the DAR applicant whose mention of Aunt Fannie's letter got me wondering about all this in the first place. And Mary Ann's cousin Emma Charles was herself married by 1867.

Sandwiched in between these joyful moments in the family's timeline were other disruptions. While I have yet to find Drucilla's second husband's date of death, by March of 1866, it was clear that both Melburn Odum and his wife Drucilla had passed. Drucilla, following the path of her intestant brother before her, died leaving no will. Another Charles sister, widow Mary Ann McLeran, was appointed as administratrix of Drucilla's property in March of 1866 and eventually—by 1872—that sad task finally drew to an official close.

Following Drucilla's passing by 1866, the final player in this drama was Light Townsend himself, who died in South Carolina in March of 1870.

While there were a few celebratory moments in this whirlwind of less happy events, the time it would have taken to make such a round trip—in that time period and with the constraints of their current forms of transportation—make it doubtful that an aging Light Townsend would have made such a trip. Possibly in the earliest years after the loss of Delaney and her husband, Light might have come to lend a financial or organizational hand—but it would have been unlikely that he'd return home with two very young nieces at that point.

That, however, still leaves me with a predicament: I've yet to find any verifiable written documentation to tie my third great-grandmother to her parents, or even to her siblings. But that is written documentation. As we leave this month's focus to move toward the next of my Twelve Most Wanted research goals for 2025, let's use the weekend to determine what we gained, what we still need, and what other verification has now become available to researchers in situations like this.

Just a Blip on the (Genealogical) Radar

 

One look at the calendar tells me this month is almost over, but I've yet quite a bit more work to do before I attain my goal of documenting the parents of my third great-grandmother, Delaney Townsend Charles. While this Townsend-Charles search deserves far more time and attention, I did find one tiny speck of interest. Let's just call it a blip on the genealogical radar screen.

Searching through millions of pages of digitized records can be, on the one hand, a breeze compared to the research drudgery endured pre-computers. On the other hand, the sheer volume of searchable material sometimes yields a hit or miss experience. I have run across so many documents in one sitting and, having made a mental note to go back to one or two key pieces while working on multiple others, I've subsequently been unable to replicate the online search result—even when using the same search terms. Frustrating, to say the least. This has been a month that has seen more than one time I could have kicked myself.

One such time was when I ran across a court record cataloguing some detail about the estate of Delaney Charles. Like her husband before her, apparently Delaney passed without having drawn up any legal document to protect the interests of her three minor children—but when was the question. On one marathon day of searching, I found several documents on this whole Charles family question—but apparently didn't save each of the links to trace my way back to those sources. And could I replicate those searches? No.

Until now, that is—at least for a couple of them. It may be possible that Delaney and her husband Andrew died within a time frame in which the probate judge appointed an administrator to handle the two cases as one. In one court record on the sale of inventory, Andrew Charles' listing is entered directly across the page from Delaney's—and both possibly entered into the record on the same date (Andrew's entry gives the date as "on the first Monday in April, 1852, while Delaney's entry is dated as "Monday the fifth day of April").

In that record of numbered vouchers, showing cash paid for specific items of the estate, Andrew's inventory mentioned someone named B. I. Townsend—likely Benjamin Townsend. Allen Townsend was also included in that list. Under the entry for Delaney's personal estate, Allen Townsend's name appeared again, as well as the name Temperance Townsend. (The only Temperance I have found so far was Allen's granddaughter. The only problem with that identity is that Allen's granddaughter was not born until 1855.)

Granted, there were several other names also mentioned in that list provided by Theo Hartridge, administrator of the Charles estate. I'm not meaning to imply that by virtue of being included in the list, these people were family—but they knew enough to come by and acquire some of the property being sold from the estate.

Another court record gave more detail as to what was being sold. "A. Townsend"—presumably Allen—purchased one "lot crockery," an oven pot and kettle, and a side saddle. Another Townsend—first initial "W"?—bought a chicken. The whole of Delaney's person estate netted less than one hundred dollars, not much when you consider the court's observation that her three minor children were about to inherit a "considerable estate."

While we can't outright assert that any of the Townsend customers at the Charles estate sale were kin to Delaney, one thing is obvious by this exploration: there was absolutely no mention of Light Townsend, the knight in shining armor who supposedly swooped down from his estate in South Carolina to rescue his poor orphaned nieces in Florida.

There is still one additional way we can explore that assertion about Delaney's possible brother Light. We'll consider that as we wrap up this second of my Twelve Most Wanted ancestors for this year.

Looking at Light's Will

 

Sometimes, unfinished business may be mentioned—and wrapped up—in a person's last testament. In that hope, my first stop in pursuing the records of Light Townsend was to look at his will. While I didn't expect to see any mention of his possible role in assisting his deceased sister Delaney Townsend Charles' orphaned children, I couldn't exactly not take a thorough look. After all, if he did, as Aunt Fannie's story indicated, travel from South Carolina to Florida to offer help to his nieces and nephew, surely there would be a mention of that connection at some point.

Not in Light Townsend's 1869 will, however. Though the man's will revealed the extent of his property—and gives us an idea of the amount of success he enjoyed during his life—there was no mention of any connections to Townsend kin who might have left South Carolina for greener pastures in northern Florida.

Named in Light Townsend's will were three daughters and a son, the youngest of his children. Perhaps owing to Light's thorough nature, each of his daughters' husbands were also listed by name. His will listed, first, his daughter Amelia, wife of Thomas E. Dudley, followed by Harriet, wife of John B. Irby, and finally, Mary Ann, wife of William F. Kinney. His son, John R. Townsend, was to be appointed executor of his will—"when he attains the age of twenty one years"—along with his three sons-in-law. With no mention of his wife, we can assume that the former Mary Ann Carloss had already passed—apparently, by 1858.

As for Light Townsend, himself, his will was presented in court in Marlboro County on March 26, 1870, a little over a year after he had signed it. That there was no mention of any connection with Townsends in Florida is not a surprise, but seeking that information was a step that needed to be taken. Thanks to the mention of the Townsend daughters' husbands, the name William F. Kinney reminds me that it was a Kinney descendant who had included mention of Aunt Fannie's letter in her DAR application—the closest sign of corroboration yet.

Though the Townsend will itself didn't reveal any extended family connections, there is still plenty of room to look further. Let's take some time to do so tomorrow with a different approach.

Finding the Guardian

 

Sometimes, we have to come to the conclusion that stories about our family's history may not necessarily be the way things really were. Regarding the mention last week of Aunt Fannie's story about her orphaned mother, it is fairly easy to look through documents to piece together the actual situation. Family stories passed down through the generations can sometimes be just that: stories.

On the other hand, the possibility that my third great-grandmother's brother traveled from South Carolina to attend to the needs of his orphaned nieces—and nephew, one would presume—could be a reasonable expectation. Judging from some reports of Light Townsend's land holdings in Marlboro County, South Carolina, he might have been the most logical relative to extend a helping hand. (Not to mention, if that were so, surely there would be some documentation drawn up that would help confirm the family relationship.)

What happened to the children of Delaney Townsend and her husband Andrew J. Charles after their unexpected passing can be easily seen through census records in the following decade. Rupert Charles and his sisters Fanny and Emma were listed in the 1860 household of Melburn L. Odum in New River County, Florida.

That, however, only begins to provide the explanation. To see the family connection requires a bit more digging. Melburn's wife Drucilla was actually Andrew Charles' sister. As can be deduced by the surname of two other children in the Odum household, Drucilla had been previously married to a man named Hines. Indeed, we can now see the marriage license for Thomas Hughes Hines and Drucilla Charles was returned dated May 11, 1852, in Madison County.

It was apparently Thomas Hughes Hines who was originally appointed guardian for the orphaned children of his brother-in-law Andrew Charles. Thanks to a comment from reader Kathy Duncan of Porch Swings, Fireflies, and Jelly Jars, we can see the slightest mentions in the probate records for the Charles estate, dated October 19 of 1854 and again in early January 1855, referring to payments to "T. H. Hines, guardian."

So why the letter from Aunt Fannie, stating that Light Townsend traveled from South Carolina to Florida to take care of his orphaned nieces? Let's see if we can find any record from Light Townsend's side of the story that would mention a connection to Delaney Townsend Charles' family.

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.

Shedding Some Light on Light Townsend

 

If the orphaned daughters of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles ended up leaving their home in Florida to live in South Carolina with someone named Light Townsend as Aunt Fannie's story claimed, it would seem reasonable to discover exactly who such a person was. Orphaned or not, those two girls must have had some family members left with a vested interest in their wellbeing. Even if not, there should be some legal record of who would assume responsibility for the ongoing care of those minors.

The name Light is not one often seen—certainly not now, and in my experience, not a given name I've seen from previous centuries. The rarity of a name can sometimes become a blessing to the stumped researcher, and it was not hard to find information on someone named Light Townsend in Marlboro County, South Carolina, who died there in 1870.

That Light Townsend may well have been the one from the 1850 census, still in Marlboro County, who had in his household a possible wife, four children, and an eighty year old woman named Keziah who likely was his mother. Though the family composition changed slightly by the time of the 1860 census—gone were the eighty year old mother and the possible wife, though a nine year old boy named John R. Townsend was added—judging from the value of Light Townsend's property, he had likely been in that county for quite some time. Unfortunately, his passing precluded his appearance in the subsequent census.

Assuming that was the only Townsend man by the name of Light would be a mistake, however. If we looked in the northern Florida region where Delaney Townsend went to marry Andrew Charles in 1841, we would eventually discover there were at least two other men there who bore the same name, Light Townsend. One was a son of a suspected brother of Delaney, Benjamin, who died intestate; we can see his son Light listed in the 1860 census as one of two ten year old twins in Benjamin's household. 

Another Townsend man living in northern Florida—David R. Townsend, whose name appeared as probate judge in the administration of Benjamin Townsend's estate—also happened to have a son named Light, listed in his household in the 1860 census, along with a possible daughter named Kiziah, a name strikingly similar to that of the eighty year old woman living in the South Carolina Townsend household. 

If the story we learned yesterday from Aunt Fannie was true, census records would not provide us with any evidence confirming the presence of Delaney's two orphaned daughters in the household of the South Carolina man named Light Townsend. There might, however, be records of proceedings naming a guardian of the orphans. That would be a next step for researching this family story from Aunt Fannie, except for one other detail: I've found those possible orphan girls listed in someone else's household. 

According to Aunt Fannie

 

Somehow, genealogical verification beginning with the words, "according to Aunt Fannie," just doesn't have the academic ring of a traditional footnote. The truth of the matter, though, is that the Townsend lineage of my third great-grandmother may well be resting on the testimony of a woman named Fannie McClellan Rowell.

I was surprised to see, right there in the midst of a 1948 DAR application, attribution for some facts on the Townsend family credited to a letter written by Fannie Rowell. Yes, the Townsend family Bible was also mentioned in that application, but a DAR file like that is usually chock full of references to vital records, census records, and other governmental documents. Letters from Aunt Fannie? Well, that's different.

I've written about Aunt Fannie before, as early as 2015, when I was trying to piece together her own relationship to my maternal grandmother's McClellan family. She had always been referred to—at least in my family—as Fannie Rowell, not McClellan, and I naturally needed to chart the genealogical connection.

Since then, I've had to refer back to Aunt Fannie's stories in 2019, and again in 2021, while researching the connection between that same McClellan family and the published stories told by a man named King Stockton, who grew up in the McClellan household as the son of an enslaved woman.

Here she was again, this Aunt Fannie, mentioned in an application for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. While Aunt Fannie may have been old—she was not my aunt, nor my mother's aunt, but my grandmother's aunt—she certainly wasn't old enough to be providing testimony of such family matters as if she had personally witnessed them in her own lifetime. She did, however, provide details about her mother who, in turn, was Delaney Townsend Charles' daughter Emma.

Thanks to details in a letter from Aunt Fannie, cited in that DAR application, the applicant explained that, after the widowed Delaney's death, her orphaned daughters were taken to live for a while in South Carolina by a man named Light Townsend. The applicant also explained that Aunt Fannie, the granddaughter of Delaney Townsend Charles, had sent letters with names and dates of family members to John R. Townsend, grandson of Light Townsend, and thus that information had been preserved by the Townsend branch of that family.

Preserved, that is, as long as it was correctly noted, correctly transcribed, and adequately protected from the ravages of time. Where those original letters are now, I can't say, but at least some semblance of those reports has been preserved through that 1948 DAR application.

In the meantime, the question becomes: who was Light Townsend of South Carolina? Why was he so concerned about the orphaned children of Delaney Townsend Charles in Florida? If he did, indeed, travel to Florida to bring those daughters back to live with him in South Carolina, I'd like to find any records to indicate such an arrangement. But first, let's take the time to examine just who Light Townsend actually was.

Piecing Together the Estate

 

When an ancestor dies intestate, the only option for those of us seeking to research his family line is to follow the details as his estate is liquidated. Granted, hundred year old inventories of belongings can make for boring reading, but if we learn to read between the lines, we can sometimes infer points about who is related to the deceased, based on their interest in what becomes of his estate.

In the case of Benjamin Townsend—whom I'm following because I suspect he was a brother of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend Charles—I already had an idea of the names of his immediate family members from the 1870 census. That document had revealed the likelihood that Benjamin's wife Jane, whom he had married in 1841, had long since died, since the wife named in 1870 was Martha, apparent mother of the two youngest children in the census: three year old David and baby George.

As of that 1870 census, likely children from the previous marriage (or possibly more than one) included sons Charles, Benjamin, Patrick, Light, and Joseph, as well as daughter Jane. Yet, by 1872, when William Sears was appointed as administrator of Benjamin's estate and drew up the inventory of the Townsend holdings, the paltry amount remaining was itemized and proceeds distributed to the then-remaining children.

That process was completed three years after Benjamin's passing. Named in that second step (in order listed in the probate records) were his children Benjamin, Light, Jane, and Joseph, as well as minor child David. 

At this point, a confusing entry mentions minor "Charles Townsend, child." That line was followed by writing which was subsequently crossed out. The document continues with an explanation that someone named James Townsend was paid out of the proceeds of the estate "for the child of Charles Townsend, deceased, to buy cloes [sic] for the little minor which were its share of its father's state."

This, of course, brings up several questions. First, what happened to Benjamin's son Charles? When did he die? Who was his wife and mother of this child? But most of all, who was James Townsend, and why was he paid the money for Charles' orphaned child?

While questions such as these pull us farther and farther away from my stated research goal for this month—to find documentation of the parents of my third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend—searching for these subsequent answers may eventually lead us to a collateral line whose documentation may provide the linch pin linking all these Florida Townsends together, and point us back to their true South Carolina origin.  

In Hot Pursuit of DNA Cousins

 

It's fascinating how quickly a family tree can blossom out into a bushy creation, once we add genetic genealogy to our family history toolkit. While some people may be the ones with a tip-of-the-tongue answer to the question, "How far back have you gone," my goal in building that family tree is quite different. 

It's been years now since I first added DNA testing to my genealogical research tools—since 2014—but I still can't help but wonder, "Who are all these people?" There are thousands of matches for my tree and for the trees of extended family members I have also tested. My only solution since the shock of receiving that huge number of initial results was to grow my tree out, not up. That meant extending each branch of the tree by adding collateral lines, then tracing each generation of their descendants.

Now that I'm working on my brick wall third great-grandmother Delaney Townsend, I'm not only tearing my hair out over the lack of records connecting her to parents or even siblings, I'm using DNA to do something about this research roadblock. First, I added Delaney's assumed parents to my tree—flagging them with all the bells, whistles, and warning signs possible—then added the supposed children to the line. And then, I cut the whole bunch off from my tree, forming a Townsend "floating branch" on my tree.

Now, floating in the outer space of my family tree, each of Delaney's supposed brothers have their own line of descent added in, bit by bit, guided by the 125 DNA matches currently attributed to John Townsend of South Carolina, Delaney's alleged father. As I find possible brothers for Delaney from this list—especially the ones living in the same county in Florida as she did following her 1841 marriage in Madison County there—I pull together documentation to trace their lines forward in time.

This, of course, is the likely explanation for how I managed to add 346 more names to my tree in the last two weeks. Yes, it's been a busy time adding possible nieces and nephews for Delaney. Tracing each of their descendants has so far grown that tree to 39,480 people—and there's more "bushiness" to come.

As I keep up this pace, the count has increased in the past two weeks by a few additional matches credited to the ThruLines readout for this Townsend line—no surprise, since I now have 2,615 DNA matches at Ancestry.com, and more at the other major testing companies, too.

It will take quite a bit of time for me to confirm with documentation the DNA connection between these Townsend descendants and myself. After all, we're talking about 125 matches flagged as Townsend connections. But if the paperwork looks good for a majority of them, that may give me something positive to consider about the true identity of Delaney's missing parents.

Doing the D N A Route

 

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.