Wednesday I decided to go back to Armstrong County Genealogical Library. The people there are quite helpful and offer many good ideas and suggestions. We have now searched Ancestry, Heritage Quest and innumerable books about the county and about the Bowser Family. Still no luck, the newsletter will be published this month and I posted a query with the information that I had.
One person suggested that I send for the Civil War Pension records for the Jacob Bowser that I suspected might be Olives father. This is my last resort, I really do not want to spend $75 on a long shot. What else to do? Do I want to go to Armstrong County Courthouse and sift through the will of every Jacob Bowser? The clerk told me that there were sixty three of them in the records alone. I suppose I could narrow it down to Jacob Bowser's who died after Olive would have been conceived.
Another thought I had was that in the 1860 census I found a Jacob and Mary Bowser living with her father Thomas Murphy who was born in Ireland. Could Mary Murphy Bowser have been Catholic and baptized the children in the Catholic Church? Armstrong County belongs to the Diocese of Greensburg and they do not have an archives. To obtain the record you have to go to each and every Catholic Church and since this family in question had different addresses in every census that might prove to be an monumental task.
I also have to drive to Ohio and see if the cemetery has any information that was not in either the death certificate or obituary. It is only an hours drive, which is certainly easy to do. I think I need another relative to occupy my time for awhile.
Your Olive is really putting up a fight against being found, isn't she? I hope you'll soon find something with ONE of your searches. You're making such a valiant effort.
ReplyDeleteI think a glass of wine might help my effort, or perhaps I won't dwell on it as much.
ReplyDelete