OUT TO LUNCH AND RESEARCH FOR AUNT EDNA.

My husbands elderly (89) Aunt invited me out to lunch with her and her daughter yesterday afternoon.   I have been sharing with her my trials and tribulation on finding relatives.   Her husband was my husbands fathers brother.    She was the person who told me that the elusive Olive Bowser died on Christmas Eve in Salem Ohio.
After lunch she asked me if I could do something for her.  She wanted to know where her Great Grandparents came from.   Aunt Edna had given me some preliminary information.   She said that her grandmother could speak French and German and in fact Edna had studied French in High School so she could practice speaking to her grandmother.
I accepted the challenge.   She had written that her great grandfather was born in 1825 and died in 1886.  Phillips wife was named Barbara.   Checking the census was the number one thing to do.   Fortunately the couple  came to the Pittsburgh area and stayed there.
What I found on Ancestry was  1)1860 census was Philip, Barbara and son Philip.    2) I found him on a list of eligible to fight in the Civil War list.   I do not know if he did serve.  3) 1870 and 1880 census.   All were saved by me on my computer and in my Ancestry Shoebox.
Next I searched on the Ancestry Family Trees and found two with people who were researching the same couple.   I now had Phillip and Barbara’s dates of birth and death.    There was no citation so I sent the owners and asked where they got their citations.  As well as their dates of birth and death I now had Barbara’s maiden name and the places where they were born in Alsace-Lorraine France, complete with the towns listed.  
The last of my find was a note that they were buried at St. Luke Cemetery.   Now there were a few St. Luke Cemeteries and I chose the one that was the closest to where the couple lived.    St. Luke near Millvale Pa is a small cemetery and it is kept up by the Lutheran Church in Millvale PA.  
Some wonderful soul had indexed the cemetery and it has Aunt Edna great grandparents, grandparents and some of the siblings of Edna father.   I was so happy that finding this information was a breeze.  It actually only took me a few hours time and the research was quite fruitful.   I hope Aunt Edna is happy…..
The index stated that they had grave markers, so I see a trip to ST. Luke Cemetery in my future.