Genealogy: the great adventure follow-up to the lesson

Laura Armstrong Couch

 I am enrolled in the in-depth learning NGS Home Study Course. The reason for taking the graded course is to have another pair of eyes read my research. One of the assignments for Lesson 2 of the NGS Home Study Course is to write and research personal family lore. The Indian chief and my grandmother story has been told many times at Schuler family gatherings. This made a great topic to methodically follow the 5 steps for evaluating tradition.[1]

The response from my grader on this lesson opens up a new path of research. Written at the bottom of the article was the comment to consider my grandmother’s mother as the person who sat on the chief’s lap. Very little information has been discovered at this time regarding Laura Armstrong. Laura was born 22 October 1856 or 1857 in Andover, Allegany County, New York. This is secondary information. She married Eugene Couch on 2 August 1874 in Streator, LaSalle County, Illinois. I have no other information on when or how her family arrived in LaSalle County, Illinois. If she was born in 1856, the Couch and Armstrong families could have traveled together. The Couch family traveled from Rome, Oneida County, New York, by wagon. If Laura’s birth location is correct, did her family join the band as it passed south along the Seneca Road?  

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[1] For more information on the steps to record and evaluate family lore contact National Genealogical Society, 3108 Columbia Pike, Suite 300, Arlington, VA 222204, or 800-473-0060 or www.ngsgenealogy.org. The assignment is from the Home Study Course CD 1, Lesson 2.