Nuts From the Family Tree: Tombstone Tuesday: Bridget is Found!

I'm not the kind of person to remain isolated for very long. Yes, it's true, I can sit quietly in a corner and think for quite a long time, or stick my nose in a book for an even longer period. Mom and I both like our alone time. But I love making connections too! Sometimes it just works out that a connection is made with a like-minded traveler and you start exchanging info and tree sections. And so it was recently.

Here's what I posted last Wednesday on my regular Wisdom Wednesday GeneaBloggers post:

Allegany County List Friends. I do like mailing lists for geographic areas! You can post idiosyncratic questions there and actually get answers. I recently posted a question asking when a manufacturing plant that my Dad worked at closed. Was surprised to find that it hadn't closed, it had just moved! Had no idea!
As with lists like this, eventually you start emailing back and forth sharing stuff and become friends. One of my friends there recently emailed a photo of a tombstone in St. Michael's Cemetery in Frostburg, Maryland. It's a beautiful old Irish Cross, and the name inscribed, which was just about the only thing that was readable, was John Kelly. Because this person knows I'm over here in the Kelly pile-o-ancestors, she relayed the photo to me... of my 2nd GGF's Irish Cross tombstone! I was able to supply all of the vital data that was worn off the stone so that correct info was now on FindAGrave.
But there's more!! Through her resources and contacts - wow, she's good and well connected - she was able to solve a long time mystery and that's where his wife, Bridget Cocoran Kelly is buried. Right there next to him!! Now we know where she lies and her date of death too. Next step: get a copy of the death certificate!

I was so blown away by what happened that I felt the need to write about it here again! What if I wasn't on that list and checking it all the time? She and I would never have started emailing back and forth. And what if I had left her emails sit in my inbox and not been sociable? What if I didn't tell her about this blog and post here about the Kellys a lot? And what if I didn't post this photo of the small-ish Irish cross tombstone for the final resting place of my 3rd great grand father, John P. Kelly (1829 - 1891)? Then it wouldn't have stuck in her mind so that she remembered and connected it up with my Kelly people. We might have eventually made the connection but I've got to think it would have taken a lot longer and perhaps even never happened.

I guess the most amazing and dumbfounding aspect of this is that she then contacted someone who looked at records and found that sweet Bridget Corcoran Kelly was resting right there beside strong John Patrick Kelly! (She's got to be "sweet" because she's a Bridget, and he's got to be "strong" because he probably worked on building the C&O Canal. Or is that just my imagination?)

I couldn't wait to tell Mom. She's been looking for where Bridget Corcoran Kelly was buried for years. She's been right where she's supposed to be all the time! And last week I ordered Bridget's death certificate because I knew her death date. Got it yesterday!

Next time I'm visiting Mom we want to look all around the Irish cross stone searching for any trace of Bridget's marker. John died in 1891 and Bridget died in 1912 so it's quite possible that there is a small marker for her that has been covered over by dirt and grass. In this time and place, a satellite marker was often used for family that passed on later.

It's nice for me that I'm still not so jaded in the pursuit of genealogy (or life for that matter) such that I don't get all worked up by these events! Bet you can get all worked up too.