Another brick wall for me in my research is Catharine Phelan. I have her birthday as 15 April 1837. This comes from old family records. Nobody seems to know the names of her parents. She appears on the 1861 Quebec census. She married Willard Axtell In the 1860 census, she is living in The Town of Eagle, La Salle, Illinois. She appears on the 1880 census in Spring Grove, Linn, Iowa. She had at least one child born in Illinois. This couple had six children. On the Montana County Marriages index, Catharine's name is shown as Katie Mires, which is a name that my aunt has penciled in on her records as well. Nobody is sure where this surname may have come from. Catharine died on 4 July 1916 in Bozeman, Montana. She is buried in Holy Rosary Cemetery, aka Holy Cross.