Well...<long sigh>... I have spoken to the caretaker at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Johnson County Iowa and he tells me that John Furlong's headstone says "John Furlong 1814 - 1854" and nothing else. He also stated that it's located in the portion of the cemetery where people didn't "buy the lots" meaning he either had no family to pay for the burial, or the family was too poor. I would assume the latter because he did leave his wife, Jane Jones Furlong, behind with 8 children to care for! The caretaker did say that the headstone was really nice though. (Maybe she saved up and put a nice one there when she could afford to do so?) He then reccommended I contact the Johnson County Historical Society, but they had no info and reccommended I speak to the Johnson County Auditor/Recorder's office - they too had no info. As far as my hopes for finding records containing the names of his parents and place of origin they are pretty dim. Since John died in 1854 there were no records kept at that time. And I can't seem to find anything for a John Furlong before 1839 in the Immigration Index. My only hope at this point is this little blurb I came across when I Googled "Early Settlers of Old Man's Creek" in Iowa. The article is titled: "First Naturalizations in Johnson County, Iowa, USA." located at http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofjohnson00iowa/historyofjohnson00iowa_djvu.txt In the article it mentions John Furlong Naturalizing in 1841 from "Great Britain". Forgive my geographical ignorance but what does this mean? Is he if from England instead of Ireland or just a certain part of Ireland that belonged to Great Britain in 1841? The following is copied from the article (John Furlong is mentioned near the end of it): FIRST NATURALIZATIONS. On June 1, 1841, were issued the first naturalization papers ever made in Johnson county. The following named gentlemen from Ireland appeared before the district court in Iowa City, there solemnly abjured their allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain, and swore allegiance to the United States: James Wicks, John Mullin, Hugh Deen, Harmon Luken, Francis Kerr, Patrick Smith, Jeremiah Driskel, Michael Keff', William Croty, Andrew McWilliams, John Hurly, John Conway, James Roach, John Conboy. On the next day, June 2, the following Germans came into court and made oath of their intention to become citizens of the United States: Casper Nick, native and subject of Prussia; Joseph Gross, of Wirtem- burg; Mathias Laner, of Baden; Casper Dunkel, of Bavaria; Philip Schwartfager, of Hanover; Ferdmand Haverstraw, of Baden. On following days during the same term the same oath was taken by Robert Simpson, John Furlong and Morris Kelly, subjects of Great Britain, and John Luken, subject of the King of Hanover. Thanks to anyone willing to offer some info. Jill Wilson