Connections count when you're on a records hunt

Evidence connecting one generation of a family to another often isn't very strong. Sometimes lines on a pedigree chart are so thin, they're barely visible. But with determination and persistence, a good genealogist can fatten those lines and build a solid case for a family history.

Several things hamper our efforts to connect people we believe are related. For many years (until well into the 20th century in some places) the government didn't require birth or death records. Even when they were required, they were stored — along with marriage, land and probate records — in buildings that frequently flooded or burned.

For every obstacle thrown into their paths, determined genealogists must turn to an odd assortment of records — personal and public — to draw those lines between generations and to prove, for example, that the James Dawsey in Henry County, Ala., in 1855 is the same James Dawsey that was in Gadsden County in 1837.

In the course of finding these substitute records, we keep in mind that our ancestors often lived at the edge of civilization — or perhaps beyond, in the wilderness with wild animals and unfriendly natives.

There was safety in numbers, so very few of them struck out on their own.

Entire neighborhoods and family units picked up and relocated together. In the genealogy world we have this proverb: Research the neighbors, research the collaterals. So we must find individuals that might have created records with or about our ancestors.

A look at James Joshua Dawsey's family illustrates how this works.

When Alabama became a state, her lands were transferred to the federal government. This means records of those land distributions weren't in the many Alabama county courthouses that burned sending the precious land files to the ash pile.

Instead, the records were safely in the custody of the federal government. Researchers can access them online at the Government Land Office of the Bureau of Land Management (www.glorecords.blm.gov).

Through these records I learned that James J. Dawsey, the target of my research, had been granted several tracts of land. One of them was listed as a bounty warrant — that's a clue that the government rewarded some military service with payment in land.

A look at the grant itself showed the government gave him the land for service in the Second Seminole War in Florida. This can be a bit confusing, because two sets of records actually exist in these situations. The land grant record itself is with the Bureau of Land Management and available online.

But the soldier's application for the bounty land is classified as a form of pension, and thus is a military record and located at the National Archives. Researchers can order copies of those applications online at http://tiny.cc/vn0yb. It takes about a month to get them in the mail.

When the Dawsey file arrived in my mailbox, I found evidence that the Alabama James was, indeed, the same man as the Florida James. He applied for the bounty land on May 5, 1855, from Henry County, Ala. The file says: "[He] declares that he is the identical James J. Dawsey who was a private in the Company commanded by Captain William Harrison in the Regiment of Florida Militia commanded by Colonel Leigh Read in the war known as the Florida War."

Elsewhere in the file he states he enlisted in Gadsden County.

Keeping in mind that James probably didn't move alone, I studied the other Dawseys in his community. The pieces began to fall together when I found that John and Thomas A. Dawsey also got their land through bounty warrants earned in the Florida War. They all served from Gadsden County.

I have yet to find any single document that directly states James, John and Thomas were brothers, or that they were the sons of an elder Thomas Dawsey. I have found no official record that directly states they all traveled together from Florida to Alabama. But by platting land grants and purchases and by studying censuses in Alabama and in Florida I can see that the same cluster of Dawseys lived and moved together. We can use our common sense to argue that this is a family unit – but it takes looking at records they each created and then linking them together.

Next week, I explain how a letter served as the link between the elder Thomas and his South Carolina family.