Mary E. Edwards

After much searching and a little frustration, the Edwards family is no longer a mystery!  Our family tree has long been stopped at John Colby Young and Mary E. Edwards.
Recently my dad handed me a collection of documents to see if I could find any clues.  There was a hand written note by a man named William Edwards giving permission for John Colby to marry his daughter.  It was the first clue since I never had a name for the father of Mary Edwards!
The middle initial looked like an "N" a "U" or maybe an "M" and after reviewing the rules of cursive handwriting which is hardly used in our day, my dad and I realized the middle initial was definitely an "M." 
I pulled up a 1900 census just to take a look and see if I had missed any hints.  Suddenly I noticed there was a column for the number of children born, and then another column for the number of children surviving.  It clearly said that Mary Edwards had 9 children and that only 5 survived.  I was never aware of this information but given the time of the late 1800's it all made sense.  There were also some gaps in years of her 5 children that I never could quite understand.  Now it was time to look back into the 1880 census which I was never able to match one to John Colby and Mary Edwards since the info was a little bit off and didn't seem to be accurate.
Alas, the 1880 census in Illinois showed a "J. C. Young" and a "Mary E. Young" living with two infants.  I'm sure I have seen this census record before but brushed it off since I had always held true that Robert Cleveland was the oldest child, when in fact he was the oldest surving child.  It was a joy to finally place this record with its rightful owners.
Now, the next clue came upon me on this 1880 census where it listed the birthplace of the mother and father of each indivual.  For Mary, she listed her father being born in Virginia, and her mother in Kentucky.  Now for John Colby, he listed both parents as being born in "Unknown." 
All these years we had this idea that John Colby's family was Welsh.  Uncle Bill told my father this several times but couldn't quite explain why he knew this information since his father died when he was 9 years old and his mother died a few years later.  Since John Colby was a Union soldier and his family was said to have been Southern sympathizers, I always pictured this extreme patriotism with deep roots embedded into the south.