My brick wall is Etta (Burns or Burris) O'Brien, 1880 Butler County PA Census.

Question

Etta (or Rosetta, or Ettie, or Eltie) Burns was born c. 1859 in Meadville, PA. She married Edward (F. or T.) O'Brien and had 2 sons, one daughter. Harry (or Patrick Harry) (b. 1877) & Tracey E (b. 1879) were born in Titusville, PA. Myrtie Mae O'Brien Caswell, my gr-grandmother,  was born in Meadville, PA 1882.

The family, minus Myrtie, are in the Butler County, PA census for 1880. There is a Mary  A. Burns listed, purpotedly Etta's mother.

Etta's name is recorded in census as "Etta". Her death record (Aug 1897, Dayton, OH) is recorded as Eltie O'Brien. She is buried in Woodland Cemetery.

Her son's vital records also show her name as BURRIS.

I am interested in tracing the family in PA. I have FamilyFinder test but have no definitive leads on BURNS, O'BRIEN or BURRIS. Have asked volunteers to check Meadville Historical Society and a volume of Meadville Births for BURNS or O'BRIEN/O'BRIAN/O'BRYAN but found nothing.

Answer 1

You may have already considered some of these options...

* Meadville or Titusville newspaper records available at the local libraries or other sources (Ancesty.com, Newspaper Archives, etc.)

* Church records, as well as land / tax records from these locations

* Are you sure you are referring to the correct family in Butler County - did they move around that frequently? Even though the areas aren't tremendously far apart from one another, the family was apparently in Titusville in 1879, somewhere in Butler County in 1880, and then back up to Meadville in 1882.

Good luck!