RESEARCH PROJECT.

I have to start on a research plan to find the parents of Michael Coleman and the connection to the parents of Mary Ann Saylor Coleman.
My first step will be to find every Coleman and Saylor in the census in Pennsylvania 1790, 1800, 1820, 1830, 1840 and 1850.  Then I will narrow them down to Eastern and Central Pennsylvania.
Michael Coleman was born circa 1809 and Mary Saylor in 1814.   According to the Civil War deposition of Michaels oldest son (William Thomas), the parents were born 1780-1847 for his father and his mother 1789-1831.
His dad would have been 67 at the time of his death and his mother 42 at the time of her death.  So I need to peruse the census looking for a couple with the difference in age of about 10 years. 

This was a great idea…I decided to look in the 1840 census for a man who would have been sixty years old living with his son, my theory was he had been a widower for about nine years.  I came up with this idea since I did not find the Thomas Coleman who Is my suspect for “father.”
I looked through all the Coleman names in the Huntingdon County area and found nothing.  In a flash of inspiration and now I wonder what I was thinking?   He was probably living with a daughter and since I have no idea about any names of Michael Coleman siblings I am back where I started.
I guess it was fantasy thinking on my part.  I have to come up with a new plan of action.