Back to the Ol' Neighborhood

Perhaps it is because we are surrounded with such an abundance of resources for our family history research that we so quickly forget some of the basics of breaking out of the tight loops of stalled research. I should know better than to forget about using the F.A.N. Club approach in muddling through my husband's Falvey ancestry, but perhaps I was bedazzled by the multitude of trees and DNA matches from around the world. Yet, I may find my answer by going back home to the old neighborhood where Johanna Falvey spent the later years of her adult life in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In returning to Fort Wayne, we'll be traveling down the same streets where we once learned the stories of city cop John Kelly Stevens and his wife, Johanna Falvey Kelly's daughter Catherine. We'll also be walking the same path as their son, Will Stevens, before he left his hometown for the big city in Chicago.

These are streets we haven't visited for years. Even when we last discussed the area, we focused more on the Kelly side of the family than the Falvey side, even in checking out the Friends, Associates and Neighbors of Johanna's husband, John T. Kelly.

During this same time, however, there was another Falvey in town, one which I have not yet been able to connect to Johanna's side of the family. I had always wondered why John and Johanna chose to immigrate directly to Fort Wayne, rather than gradually move there from a port city on the Atlantic coast. It seemed as if someone in the family bid them come to that specific location for a reason. While it might have been for a job, any job is made better by the fact of relocation near family. Scoring a connection which satisfies both sides of the family might be even a better choice.

Since I'm grasping at straws anyhow, we may as well take some time for a research detour. While, behind the scenes, I'm still reaching out to DNA matches with Falvey ancestry and examining the documentation in their trees, we may as well explore the possibilities in the adopted home of immigrants John and Johanna Falvey Kelly. With tomorrow's post, we'll revisit Fort Wayne of the 1870s through the early 1920s to see what we can learn about another Falvey from County Kerry named Daniel.