According to my Family Tree Maker calendar, Abigail (nee Walton) Cowin died on this day in 1876.

But I was a little vague about how I “know” this.

Abigail is my 2nd great-grandfather’s big sister. She married Edwin Cowin 22 Nov 1862 on the Isle of Man.

Every time I see her name I wonder how Abigail and Edwin and my 2nd great-grandparents James and Isabella (nee Joughin) Walton decided to leave Isle of Man and sail across the ocean to America. How did the idea come up for discussion in the first place? How long did it take for them to decide to leave their old lives and start new ones in the U.S.?

The two couples and my great-grandfather (who was a seven-month old baby at the time) made the long journey in September of 1871. They settled near one another in Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio.

Less than five years later Abigail died.

To prove this, I clicked on my Places page and scrolled down to Ohio where I chose The Cleveland Necrology File. The first screen looks like this:

Next I chose a name search and entered Cowin, but got 47 results – including deaths from the 1960s. So I switched to a keyword search and entered Cowin Abigail. This time there was just one result.

It was my Abigail: