After looking at weather and 3.2 zillion other factors a few days ago, we decided to take a break from flying and rent a car. Going to ground, so to speak. The ground we’re wandering now sure is beautiful!
0996 Clarion, PA Spring
As I discovered a few years ago, my father’s fathers are from this area and my last name’s actually Walley. So we’re going to the ground they walked, looking for landmarks on this 1865 map.
4834 Farmington Map
Some very kind and helpful folks at the Clarion Historical Society provided plenty of pointers and details that I can piece together and put into a genealogy once we’re back home.
4857 Life Preservers
Thanks to their tireless work preserving the memory of lives long past, I stood on the ground where my great, great, great grandfather rests.
4983 Ancestral Ground
Today we drove to Armstrong County beginning to search even further back, for the ground of my ancestor born about 1740. I wondered if he’d ever visited this, the oldest church in Western PA.
5102 St. Patrick Church
Wandering the large cemetery behind us in this pic, we half expected to see a Walley marker but weren’t surprised when we didn’t. At the top of the hill behind us, the riot of Life was exploding with the same fervor my apical paternal ancestor enjoyed 250 years ago on hills near here.
7536 Colorful Ground
Over the river a rainbow erupted from this ground into the sky binding cloud to mountain, lest the world should fall.
5108 Unbroken Thread
John & Anne Wiley 
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