Back on Track

While diversions—some planned, some unforeseen—take us away from our intended research projects, eventually we need to get back to the stated plan. Yes, my recent trip back to my home-away-from-home—Columbus, Ohio—bequeathed me with raw material to fuel more family history research on my DAR-potential maternal McClellan line and related Davis and Broyles lines, but I need to recall that stated purpose toward which I had already been working.

Despite this newfound pile of newspaper clippings and old letters just begging me to follow the “ooh, shiny” trail, including details on my grandfather Davis—who, in one document, listed his occupation as “Railroad Man”—I think it would be wiser to stick with The Plan I’ve already laid out.

That Plan, if you remember, was based on the fact that my daughter intends to spend a semester of her college career abroad in Ireland. And, if you remember, my husband’s heritage—at least on his father’s side—was one hundred percent Irish descendant, so why waste an opportunity like that for further research? If I do get the chance to travel to Ireland during that time, I want to hit the ground running when I get there.

The target date for this opportunity is fall semester next year. While September, 2014, seems light years away at this point, it will—I guarantee it—get here before I manage to get ready.

Not that I haven’t been tempted to stray from the research path already. I confess I’ve succumbed to that urge time and again.

So, much as I know some of you will be curious to see how my maternal family’s link unfolds with “Railroad Man,” for now, I think it best for us to set aside this treasure trove for later study and return to the point at which we left Patrick Kelly of my husband’s Irish immigrant line.

Tomorrow, we’ll pick up the narrative from where we had left Patrick’s wife—the former Emma Carle Brown—after the death of her first husband, and take a look at the life Patrick and Emma had together in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as they raised their large family in the early 1900s.