Joseph was raised in Blacklick Township, Cambria County, Pa., in the Nicktown, Pa., area. He had a farm about six miles outside of Nicktown.

In 1887, “Joseph F. Farabaugh” along with 5 other men performed a remarkable feat by clearing 18 acres of land belonging to Thomas Edwards of Blacklick Township in 28 days. The Thomas Edwards tract in the 1890 county atlas was at the notheast corner of the township. The Joseph Farabaugh residence was near the center, close to Morrison Run and near Belsano, Pa.

In 1900, however, Joseph was an unmarried coal miner, four months unemployed, living in a rented home in Jackson Township, Cambria Co., Pa. By 1910, he was a butcher with his own shop in Spangler, with his second wife Annie and children Lena, Albert, Fred and Noel. In the 1920 Census, he is identified as a railroad laborer in Cambria Township, Cambria Co., with his wife Anna, children Frederick, Noel and Gerald and a boarder, Charles Miller. Shortly thereafter, Joseph and Anna relocated to a farm in Minnesota. Sometime after Anna’s death there in 1923, Joseph came back to Cambria County and remarried. The 1930 Census shows that he and his third wife, also named Anna, were living in Ebensburg. Joseph was a 72 year old janitor at a public school building. Joseph’s obituary confirms taht he last lived in Ebensburg, Pa., and was survived by Anna.

Mary Jane died of "bilious intermittent fever," and had a final illness of 15 days.

Anna was raised in Covington Township, Clearfield Co., Pa. She appears in the 1900 Census twice. On June 4, she was a boarder “servant” with the Samuel and Emma Fredericks family in Lock Haven, Pa. On June 16, she is listed with her parents and siblings in Covington Township. In Fr. Modestus Wirtner’s chart of the Farabaugh families, he comments that she was a "French girl."

Anna immigrated in 1882.