GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF PITTSBURGH

I am really excited.   This week is the second GRIP being held in Pittsburgh.   I attended last year and had a great time and learned a lot.  This year I will be taking Advanced Land Research and it is being taught by Pamela Boyer Sayre and her husband Richard G. Sayre.

I love maps but I am having difficult trying to pin point the location on maps.   I hope to be an advanced map user by the time I am finished.   I cleaned up my computer (of useless trivia and files, did a virus and malware scan) and am ready to go.

Tomorrow will be the registration and we will get our special stuff.   The venue is at LAROCHE COLLEGE located in the North Hills of Allegheny County, it is just north of the city of Pittsburgh.  It is a small college and beautiful campus.

Staying at the college was an option but I will be staying at home and commuting.  Will update as I go this week.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

 

My grandfather, leaning on the train with his shirt undone.

MYSTERY MONDAY—MICHAEL COLEMANS PARENTS???

 

My  most enduring mystery is who are Michael A/H Coleman’s parents?   Michael is my husbands second great grandparent. 

In the deposition of the Civil War Pension for his son William  Thomas Coleman, it states that Michael was born 23 December 1809 and his wife Mary Ann Saylor was born 21June 1814.  Both were born in central Pennsylvania, Mary Ann in Huntingdon County and Michael possibly in Huntingdon County or perhaps near by Bedford County.

The deposition goes on to state the dates of birth and death for “mother” are 1789 – 1831.  The dates for “father” are 1780-1847.   Mother would have been 42 at the time of her death and Father was 67 and  both died before the important 1850 census.

I do not know the names or numbers of any siblings of Michael A/H, nor have I found any online trees of anyone that have included “mother and father.”   There are descendants of Michael and Mary Ann but none have found the parents information.

I did find on ANCESTRY a 1820 census from Centre County, PA that lists a Thomas Coleman (male 26 thru 44) and a female (26 thru 44) and six children ages. Two male children ages 10 through 15 and four females ages  under 10 years of age.   Michael and his parents would fit into this demographic.   But are they my “people?”

Source Citation: 1820 U S Census; Census Place: Spring, Centre, Pennsylvania; Page: 264; NARA Roll: M33_98; Image: 279.

 

Map is from Google Maps.

Spring Township is just a few miles north of the area that is mentioned in The Deposition.

In the 1830 census I find  a Thomas Coleman living in Warriors Mark, Huntingdon County.

This Thomas Coleman would fit the criteria for Michael A/H Coleman the best.  It has

 

1830 United States Federal Census about Thomas Coleman

Name:
Thomas Coleman

Home in 1830 (City, County, State):
Warriors Mark, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania

Free White Persons - Males - Under 5:   1
Free White Persons - Males - 5 thru 9:    1
Free White Persons - Males - 15 thru 19:  1
Free White Persons - Males - 20 thru 29:  1
Free White Persons - Males - 50 thru 59:  1
Free White Persons - Females - Under 5:  1
Free White Persons - Females - 5 thru 9:   2
Free White Persons - Females - 10 thru 14: 1

Free White Persons - Females - 15 thru 19:  1
Free White Persons - Females - 40 thru 49:   1
Free White Persons - Under 20:  8
Free White Persons - 20 thru 49: 2
Total Free White Persons: 11

The nine year difference in age between father and mother would be apparent  in this census. Michael would have been 21 at the time.

Source Citation: 1830 US Census; Census Place: Warriors Mark, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania; Page: 50; NARA Series: M19; Roll Number: 166; Family History Film: 0020640.

 

 

Google Maps. Warriors Mark Township, Huntingdon County PA.

 

The distance between the two places is about 35 miles.  Now the question is how to “prove” they are “Father and Mother”

JOHN DOUD AND CATHERINE FITZMORRIS.

I had lost the link for the Glinsk Parish, County Galway Baptisms but I found it in one of my ambiguous files.   I have moved it to Evernote and there it shall remain. 

I went back to review the Baptism information to find the names of the sponsors of the Dowd sibling, Thomas (1859) (my ggf), James (1862), Maria (1864) , Catherine (1868), and Norah (1870).  
The interesting thing was for Catherine and Norah Doud there was a place residence listed as Camderry, Galway, Ireland.   I “Googled” the town and it is a very small place near the border of County  Roscommon.

  A check of the 1901 census for Camderry and I found a John Doud, age 68 and his wife Catherine (Fitzmorris ???), age 60 with a daughter Anne who is 15 years of age.   I have a suspicion that these are my great great grandparents.  My great grandfather was the first born after the marriage in 1858, and he emigrated in 1880. 

Now there are a lot of other siblings out there of which I have no idea of their names.   The older siblings probably never met the older ones. Catherine would have been 18 at the age of marriage and 45 when Anne was born.  

Every discovery brings about more questions.