When a Name Stands Out —Like, Really Stands Out

 

Looking through the names selected by our ancestors for their children can point to one frustrating fact: some families like to re-use given names, generation after generation. That, of course, makes it difficult for those of us who, in retrospect, like to organize those names into a pedigree chart. The multiple Johns and Marys in a family line, repeated over the generations, make for a challenging sorting process. It comes with a sigh of relief when we stumble upon an outlier in that name-tracing process.

Such is the case for me, as I try to intuit which Laws couple in either Tennessee or North Carolina my second great-grandmother Catherine might have called mom and dad. Fortunately, there is a key to help me in this sorting process. My Catherine Laws might have had a sibling stuck with a name which really stood out.

Those of us "gifted" with such a burden in our own lifetime may groan with sympathy, for we recognize the angst that sometimes comes to children when they really stand out in the crowd. But this is a second great-grandmother's brother, and whatever grief his name might have brought to the hapless chap in his pre-teen awkwardness is now—at least from our vantage point—received with gratefulness by those of his descendants tasked with finding our way back to his generation.

The way I know this unusual name connects to my family is through some DNA matches whose direct ancestor claimed that specific given name. The name was Larkin Laws and, though his name does seem different, there was more than one man by that name in the vicinity where Catherine Laws lived, back in the mid-1800s. 

Remembering we need to keep our eyes open for Catherine's Laws kin in both North Carolina and Tennessee, I've spotted a Larkin Laws in each of those states, according to the 1850 census. One entry, in Tennessee, included Larkin as a sixteen year old in the household of Elisha and Ellender Laws. The other option was a twenty three year old by the same name in the North Carolina household of William and Elizabeth Laws.

That second option piques my interest because the household also included a twelve year old by the name of Catherine Laws—exactly the age that fits subsequent details for my Catherine, wife of Thomas Davis. I also noticed that William Laws, head of the North Carolina household, claimed for his occupation the trade of shoemaker, something which differentiates him from the many others of that era who simply labeled themselves as farmer. We'll find that detail useful as we track that Laws family forward in time with subsequent enumerations.

Because Larkin is not only a name which really stands out, but one which happens to be claimed as a direct line ancestor by my closest Laws DNA match, I chose to begin following what became of that Larkin Laws' descendants. I didn't simply trace my match's tree—it is so easy for trees to inadvertently include mistakes—but began by independently constructing a tree of my own, based on what I could find from actual public records.

I chose to begin with the Larkin who was in the 1850 household of William and Elizabeth, specifically because that household included a younger girl by the name of Catherine—very likely my Catherine. We need to keep in mind, though, that inclusion in a household in the 1850 census did not guarantee that each younger person was specifically a child of the two oldest members of that household. Larkin could have been William's nephew, or even a much younger half-brother. Likewise, the Larkin Laws in the other household—that of Elisha Laws in Tennessee—might well have been related to William Laws' family back in North Carolina. Sometimes tracing possibilities means exploring routes to assumed family connection which turn out to be disproven hypotheses in the end. But we never know until we test our theories.

With that, tomorrow we'll learn what can be found about the Larkin Laws in North Carolina. For one thing, we'll explore ways to connect him to William and Elizabeth—not to mention to Catherine, herself. But we'll also see what we can discover about that Larkin's life trajectory, especially when it comes to his own descendants.   

Finding Catherine's Family: Through the Paper Trail

 

DNA may present us with options for building out the shadowy branches of our family tree, but those DNA matches may not always send us a clear signal. Even with what we resignedly call "brick wall" ancestors, though, there may be a paper route to a clearer genealogical answer.

For the case I'm currently grappling with, I'm looking at the family of my second great-grandmother. I have seen notes that her full name was Sarah Catherine Laws, but when I trace her life through the usual documents we use for family history, I see her name listed—with only one exception, the census just after her marriage to Thomas Davis—as Catherine, not Sarah Catherine.

I also already know that Catherine has shown up in census records as having been born in either Tennessee or North Carolina. However, don't go joining me in a collective moan over that discrepancy. Let's flip that unclear signal on its head: what it tells me is that she wasn't born in any of the other state options presented during her lifetime.

Speaking of that lifetime, even her date of birth was up for grabs. In the 1860 census, her birth was attributed as a Tennessee occasion in the year 1840. Ten years later, it was reported as a Tennessee happening in 1835, but in 1880, the date was back to 1840—but the state was changed to North Carolina. However, that 1880 census was also the enumeration in which a person's parents' place of birth was also noted; Catherine's parents were said to also have been born in North Carolina.

While this information may seem like a case of mixed messages, it really doesn't complicate our search strategy too much. We simply look for a woman named Catherine Laws who was either born in Tennessee or North Carolina—and who, at the time of the enumeration, was also living in either of those two states. We set the age parameter to include women born between 1835 and 1840, a very simple task to do, given the current capabilities of online searches and the availability of digitized records.

Next, keep in mind we will be the recipients of some genealogical good luck in the next fact necessary to find Catherine in her parents' home. Since Catherine and Thomas married in 1856, we couldn't possibly discover who her parents were through any census gathered later than that—unless there were extenuating circumstances requiring that married woman to return to her parents' home with her children. Since I already know that is not part of Catherine's life story, the only place we can—hopefully—find Catherine at home with mom and dad would be in the 1850 census. That is the only remaining enumeration in which all individuals in a household were listed by name for the census.

Simple. Our search has been narrowed for us: one enumeration, two states, a date range limited to a five-year span for Catherine's birth. What can we find for that?

Brace yourself for the onslaught of listings with a name as common as Catherine. I know I did when I decided to strike out into the wilds of online searching. And, you know what? I found only two candidates for Catherine's possible parents.

One was the household of John and Jane Laws, who lived in Beaver Island township on the eastern side of Stokes County, North Carolina. The Catherine listed in that household was fifteen years of age in the 1850 census, born in North Carolina. On the down side, John—her possible father—listed his own birthplace as Virginia, not North Carolina. Likewise for Jane. But the biggest complicating factor, at least in my own mind, was the fact that the household also included a three year old girl named Sarah. If our Catherine does turn out to have used a full name of Sarah Catherine, it is doubtful—though admittedly possible—that another member of that family would also be given that same first name.

The other candidate for likely family was also residing in the state of North Carolina. This was the household of William and Elizabeth Laws, living in Yancey County. The compelling detail about Yancey County is that it is just over the state line from Unicoi County, Tennessee. Of course, back in 1850, there was no such entity as Unicoi County; it was still part of Tennessee's Washington County, the very county where Catherine married Thomas Davis and was found with her young family for the 1860 census.

William and Elizabeth Laws' 1850 census entry was enticing for a number of reasons. A natural first point was that the Catherine included in this household was likely born in 1838, same year as etched into our Catherine's headstone when she died in 1893. That year, by extension, would make her eighteen years of age upon the occasion of her marriage to Thomas Davis—not that Tennessee marriages never saw wives of younger ages, of course, but it was a common enough age to nearly qualify it as a traditional marrying age.

What is necessary for Catherine's potential family, however, was that she at least have brothers. This was obvious for one reason: among my DNA matches are several distant "cousins" who descend from the Laws surname. While my own patriline certainly doesn't come into play in such a case, for these Laws matches to show up when I perform a search specifically for that surname means that has to be the story for their patriline. No Laws brothers for Catherine in the family listed in that 1850 census, no possibility that that line would lead to my Laws DNA matches.

There is yet another reason this second 1850 census entry looks promising as a candidate for Catherine's lost family. When I look closely at the trees posted by some of my Laws DNA cousins, they contain one particular name for their ancestor which is an unusual given name. That name happens to be included in this same census readout. While I can also find that name in other census records for 1850, this is the only family which I can find in either North Carolina or Tennessee which contains both this man's name and Catherine's own name.

We'll start examining that individual's story more closely this week, and see whether this 1850 household includes collateral lines which lead us to any of those Laws DNA matches.

Looking for Laws Kin

 

Looking for missing links in the family tree may mean testing hypotheses. And testing involves the very strong possibility of incorporating mistakes into a pedigree. A process like this might mean two steps forward, then one step—or ten—back. Such a discovery can manifest itself immediately, or only long afterwards.

In the quest to find my second great-grandmother's parents, I'm far from finding a solid answer, but I'm firmly in the midst of a tree-building process. This week, I've had to backtrack and eliminate plenty of guesses, not so much because I added the wrong name into this branch of the family tree—the potential family of Catherine Laws of northeastern Tennessee—but because so many people in that area's Laws families named their children the exact same name. Measure twice, cut once. Or, hopefully, not at all.

While building that potential tree of Laws kin in northeastern Tennessee, I'm managed to add quite a few to my family tree—despite the many I've had to carve out afterwards, due to false leads. This being time for my biweekly progress check, I'm fairly certain that my current Laws project was what made possible the 315 additional entries in my tree over the past two weeks. That tree, incidentally, now claims 27,600 individuals—though don't think they will all make the cut by the time I return for my next biweekly report.

In contrast, while there is always something to attend to on my in-laws' tree, progress was far slower. In the past two weeks, I've only added thirty nine new individuals, leaving that tree standing—mostly unmolested—at 26,142 confirmed relatives. That number will most likely remain static until I finish the next six weeks of research devoted to my mother's ancestry and move on to those Twelve Most Wanted ancestors from my mother-in-law's family.

Tomorrow, I'll outline my thinking behind selection of my main candidate for Catherine Laws' childhood family, both thanks to the guidance of DNA testing and knowledge of the area of northeastern Tennessee where the Laws family—and related lines—settled so long ago.

An Appetite for Learning

 

Though my educational palate has long since been set on long-form main courses, occasionally nibbling on some tasty genealogical appetizers is not beyond me. Given that a worldwide family history fest is about to be deliciously plated for all to partake, with no limit to time or space, why not avail one's self of such an educational feast?

The learning opportunity I'm referring to is FamilySearch's RootTech, the annual family history conference which, since the pandemic, has re-invented itself as a 72-hour long continuous digital learning opportunity beginning at 8:00 a.m.—Salt Lake City time, of course—on March 3. All it takes to be a participant in this digital event is to sign up for a free account at FamilySearch.org and register for the conference (and have access to an online connection).

Several keynote speakers have already been announced, and represent compelling life stories from around the world. Soon, the listing of all sessions will be made available, at which point you can assemble your personal play list to suit your own educational needs. As was done last year, the sessions will remain on the RootsTech website for access throughout the year, so there's no pressure to overindulge by educational overdose.

One fun diversion is the opportunity to find new relatives among fellow RootsTech attendees by joining Relatives at RootsTech—yet another way the conference team is emphasizing their theme, "Choose Connection." What really caught my eye about the team's explanation of their theme was the statement, "Of all the ways to choose connection in this world, listening to another person's story with interest and empathy might be the best way to start."

To catch up on all the RootsTech news which has already been posted, see the FamilySearch blog. Granted, there's a lot to consider—especially seeing all the stories which are about to be shared with this worldwide audience. Though the full schedule has not yet been released, there is bound to be something for everyone in this learning smorgasbord of family history. Read the menu of good things to come, yes, but in the meantime, don't forget to place your own order: in order to participate, you'll need to remember to register for your free seat at the learning table. 

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.