What are you supposed to do when you finish doing research on a difficult problem?
You should write about it. Today, I'm going to talk to you about how you can take all of your
discoveries from your research notes and put them into a report you're willing to share with others.
As you've researched your genealogy brick wall, you have probably got made a lot of different
decisions like you see on screen. In this decision tree by Genealogy Explained, all through the
process you are looking for information. And when you come across the information you make a
Yes-No decision. and then it takes you to another flow chart step. Once you're all done with that,
it's time to write your conclusions. I don't want you to be afraid of this step. The WORST
thing that can happen is that if you did a lot of research and you've made some conclusions,
you're afraid to write your conclusions because you don't think that you can competently explain
why you've made the decisions you've made. Or you don't feel that you can write to a
professional grade standard. I want you to follow a couple of steps that will help you
explain why you made the decisions you made. And then invite others, I know this is scary,
invite others to review your research. And let you know if it makes sense or if they
have some other recommendations for you. We're working with genealogy brick walls
and that means we won't be able to get away with a one sentence statement that has a citation
that explains the fact of the matter. I can't just say, "John Townley, born 1801 in Elizabethtown,
New Jersey, is the son of Effingham Townley. I can't say that because there's no
one document, or three documents, that makes that those facts abundantly clear. So I have
to do a little bit more. So the first thing I put in my genealogy research report is that I put my
question. Now, if you've been following along on the journey in my messy genealogy research notes,
you know that I actually went up with five different goals. But I need to make each of those
goals their own separate report. And so I'm going to focus on who are the parents of John Townley
of Cincinnati, Ohio. After I put in my question. I'm going to only gather the information from my
research notes (they're as messy as they were) and put them into this new report. So what are some
of the sources I have? Well, on screen you can see all of the sources I have. I have internment
records. I have the analysis of naming traditions, census records, land records, city directories,
birth sources for some of their children, a will, as well as another genealogy methodology analysis.
Let's start talking about my conclusion. When you start writing your conclusions,
you want to present it in a logical order. That someone who hasn't been following along every
step of your research journey can understand your thought process. So I had a John Townley's
internment record. And that intermittent record did say that Effingham is the son,
is the father of John Townley. Now I suspect that the informant
of the Townley is alive to bury John. The informant was likely Richard because he
handled John's estate. The next clue I had came from John's son, Asa, his internment record.
On his internment record it said where he was born. Since Asa died before John died,
the likely informant was John. And he would have known where his son was born. And that connects me
to Elizabethtown, New Jersey. The next thing I did was I paused a minute. I wanted to see
if Effingham could have been a fluke on that internment record or if there's evidence
of a naming tradition in this family for that name Effingham. And sure enough,
John had a son he named Richard. Richard had a son named, the son he named John Richard.
So Richard's father's name got passed down and his name got passed down to his son.
Now John Richard had a son named John Effingham. And we know that John ties back to that first
John that moved to Cincinnati. But now we have evidence that Effingham is a family name that is
used in this family. I also had information about how this family used a lot of naming traditions.
So it's not uncommon for them to repurpose names throughout the lines. The next piece
of information that I'm going to include is that in 1845 John purchased property in Cincinnati.
The document indicates that he is a resident of Cincinnati. So he's been in Cincinnati at least
since 1845. Sp I need to figure out the first date possible of when John got to Cincinnati.
So in the 1840 census, I have two things. One, I know that he's in Cincinnati in 1840.
And I know what his family's structure looks like. So if I go back 10 years to 1830 census,
I need to find a John Townley with a family structure very close to this to give me reasonable
confidence that that is the census record for my John. And if it is in Elizabethtown, New Jersey,
all the better. Now before I check out that 1830 census, I'm not quite done
with John in Cincinnati. So I turned to city directories to keep trying to go back year by year
until I find the earliest possible year that John Townley shows up in Cincinnati.
Well, according to Cincinnati the city directories, the earliest year that he shows up is
1833-1834. Because the book was published in 1834, the canvassing was likely done in 1833.
So we're going to stay around 1833 to 1834 just to be on the safe side.
So now, I looked in the 1830 census. I looked both in Cincinnati as well as in New Jersey.
And sure enough, I did not find him in the 1830 census. But I did not find him in Cincinnati,
but I did find him over in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Not only that the family structure seems
to be the same as the expected family structure based on that 1840 census. So I have John in
Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Now I need to look at that possibility of his father being Effingham
from Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Which was the clue that I had way back on John's internment record.
So now, I need to actually start looking for records of John and Effingham or just Effingham
himself in the 1830 census. There's no Effingham that fits the age and the location to be John's
father. I did discover a will in 1828 to explain why Effingham is not in the census of 1830.
In that will, Effingham identified a number of children Richard, Abby, John,
Jane, and Caleb are the living children. And then William is a deceased child. John
and Richard are identified as executors on this record. And I still need to get that
full probate packet for John Townley. So as soon as things open up, that's what I'm going to be
ordering. So in a deed dated 1833, in December of 1833, in that time period where John might
be over in Cincinnati, there was a deed that sold at the property that belonged to Effingham.
It was being sold by the executive Richard who lived in Elizabethtown, New Jersey.
The other executor name was John. They didn't say where he was living at the time.
Yay! So we're still going to have to make indirect correlations of things.
I did not find any deeds any probate records or any other entries
for a John Townley, who wasn't attached to another family. And we'll come back to that in a second
for him in Elizabethtown, New Jersey after 1833. So John either died or John
moved. And my spidey senses are going off. I don't know if you can actually put that in your formal
research report. But if you want to put that in your research report, you can go right ahead!
So the next thing I need to do is to begin to rule out any person named John in Elizabethtown, New
Jersey or in Essex County. Which would be nearby and possibly over in the Stanton Island area of
New York. Because it's just across the river. When I did that, I found that there were two Johns.
A Jonathan Townley and a John Magee Townley. Both of them were sons of Jonathan and Phoebe Townley
of Union, Essex County, New Jersey. And although Union isn't that far away from Elizabethtown,
New Jersey. They lived at the same time of a John in Elizabethtown, New Jersey in the 1830 census.
So they can't be the same man. And because these two do have documented relatives to their fathers,
we still have a John from the 1830 census that didn't have anything directly tying him to his
father. I have to be open to the possibility that John Townley was lying about being from
New Jersey. But he would have been lying in both the city directories, in the census records,
and then also the internment record. I also have to be open to the possibility that John Townley
was in another household in 1830. He is the head of the household in Cincinnati in 1840
but he could be in someone else's household in 1830 and I'm not able to find them.
The final little bit of information worth exploring, is going back to that naming
traditions. Remember we had a John Effingham Townley, son of John Richard. Well in this case,
if the Effingham of Elizabeth, New Jersey, is the father of John Townley, of Cincinnati,
then John Effingham is named after his grandfather and his great-grandfather.
And that is not that unusual. I can get John Townley to Elizabethtown, New Jersey reliably in
1830. I know that there is a John Townley, son of Effingham, who was established in that same town.
And while I do not have direct evidence linking them together, unless you want
to count the internment record, I think I have enough records to establish this relationship.
But do you know what the next part of writing your research report is? It's to share it! You need to
make a PDF copy of this report. And you need to attach it on Ancestry.com.
You need to put it on the profile of John Townley on FamilySearch. You need to put it
anywhere online. You can... You can put it on Wikitree. Put it out there. And invite people to
go through your research process and see if it makes sense. I invite you to do the same.
If you have discovered some place where I might have made a wrong turn. let me know
in the comment section below. I'd be happy to entertain any of your recommendations. If you
need to get caught up on the brick wall busting series about John Townley, be sure to check out
this playlist up there. And if you're ready for our latest video, check out this one right here.