Dear Pennsylvanians,
I'm in England without much hope of getting to PA to do physical research,
and I'd appreciate advice on how best to go about a birth record problem.
My basic problem is that I don't know exactly where in PA Ella Edwards was
born in July 1869. Ella may have been short for Ellen, Helen, Gabriella,
Louella or other names, but her aunt back in Ireland was Ellen Edwards.
Her father and Ellen's brother was John Edwards b. Ireland 1844, and I think
he is the one showing as married but living in a tannery boarding house in
Sheffield, Warren County, in the 1880 census but I can't locate Ella there. The
wife (and child) would not be living in a tannery boarding house, but may
have gone to stay with family in Nebraska - except I can't locate Ella there
either.
If I have the right John, he is probably the shoemaker living in
Philadelphia in 1870 with a wife called Annie, but there is no child shown on the
census.
By 1900, Ella has married someone called Eysinger (although there's no first
name on the census, you'd think finding him would be easy, but it's not) and
her father John is living with her and her 2 sons in Warren, Warren County.
The address of their house is very familiar to me, as it's where a later
generation of John's Irish family headed for when they too emigrated to the US.
Where do I start finding her birth record? - bearing in mind I'm basically
restricted to internet research? They would have all been Roman Catholics: did
Catholic churches keep records at this time? The state appears not to have
done. Should I start in Philadelphia? How?
Many thanks for any advice!
Maggie Berry