It’s a fact that documents and records do get destroyed in fires, floods and other disasters, as well as deteriorating beyond use or recognition over time.  We have had the devastating reply in response to an inquiry that the records we were seeking were destroyed when the Court House burned in the mid 1800s.  Also, vital statistics may not have been recorded by local, county or state entities prior to a certain time period.  Or, they may not be digitized and can only be accessed by a visit to the physical location of the only book with the recorded information.  Even more unfortunate is when documentation (family records) is just tossed out because the person having to make that decision does not see any value to the documents. But, one does have to believe somewhere, the information does exist.

There are different ways to document family information in the absence of public records.  For many the family Bible was used as the official family record.  Some Bibles had pages included to record births, deaths and marriages.  Others merely had pieces of paper stuck inside the cover or between pages.  Other documentation may have included hand written letters or personal recollections as we experienced with the Stuart family line.

Moving farther back in time from the great, great grandparents took an eternity, or so it seemed. John’s parents were unknown.   Progress moved one more level when a query was posted online that included the name of John’s father and mother.  Joseph Britton (John’s father) is believed to have been interred on the family farm in Indiana.  We did find Joseph in the 1820 US Federal Census verifying his residency in Owen County, Indiana.  Work on this family line was off and on for more than a decade with little to no progress.

In 2008, a few documents began appearing in family trees on Ancestry.com. Could it be the brick wall was about to tumble down for the allied families looking to move beyond Joseph and Mary Britton?  Rumors and speculation had existed for many years about a connection to one of the Britton families in Tennessee.  However, there was nothing to serve as documentation for verification until a family in Oregon scanned some old letters and made them available online.

In our next post…  The Letters