(Or, How a Find My Past Free Trial Weekend Rocked My Research, pt. 2)

Thanks for returning for the next installment! Last time, I explained how the Irish Collections at Find My Past helped me tie together a fistful of clues, allowing me to trace my Laughlins back to their origin in Ireland. This time, I’m here to talk about Orilla’s Irish grandparents, although their mystery starts here in the USA.

A long-sought obituary corroborates a sketchy Find-A-Grave entry.

Orilla’s grandparents, Joseph and Bridget Wells, also came from Ireland. They arrived in 1864 at ages 20 and 18 respectively, traveling via the main steerage part of the S. S. City of Baltimore.

Early in my research, I found a mystery. Some time between 1880 and 1900, the Wells family all but fell apart. Joseph and Bridget vanish and their five children are left to care for each other.

I tried newspapers and probate records, and even though every small fact I found about the Wells family felt like a win, I still wasn’t getting any closer to answering the initial question: What happened to Joseph and Bridget, and when?

When I found Joseph Wells’s Find-A-Grave entry, it seemed like a break in my case at first. It gave the date of his death as February 28, 1885. However, it’s only a transcribed record. The entry notes that there is no physical headstone in the cemetery , so where did the information come from? Cemetery data? Church records? A local history? Or even the obituary I’d been seeking for so long?

Enter Find My Past. They boast over 1000 exclusive collections, including historical newspaper content. The value of that claim became real to me when, at long last, I leaned in close to the screen and read Joseph Wells obituary.

“Joseph Wells, a resident of this place for eighteen years, died at his home on Kinnear street, of heart disease, on Friday morning last at 3 o’clock. He leaves a wife and five children. The funeral services were held at the Episcopal church, on Sunday at 2 o’clock p. m., the Rev. J. B. F. Brooks of Oil City officiating.” -March 6, 1885, The Warren Ledger

I still don’t know Bridget Wells’s fate, but I’m on my way to understanding the shockwave that surely made an indelible impact in Orilla’s father’s life, and by extension hers as well.

(Related post: A Writer Like Aunt Lizzie)

In part three, we’ll glimpse a side of Edward C. Laughlin that has been hidden up until now…

(Photo: © Okea | Dreamstime.com)

Disclosure: I’m not an affiliate of Find My Past—and actually, I’m technically not even their customer, since I haven’t bought a paid subscription. However, I’m very likely to do so at some point in the future.