I thought that I should pay it forward and volunteer to take some pics for other people also.

What I didn’t think about was the fact that I live in a city, not a rural area.  And there are a lot of people buried here.

After a few weeks on the list, I think that there are at least 40 requests in one cemetery alone.  It’s overwhelming.  It happens to be a large cemetery – too large for me to just wander around looking for random names.

I am still going to try to help at least a few of the people who have asked.  I will carve out a few hours of time and stop by the cemetery office to see if they have a listing and a map.  It’s going to be quite the job though!!!

Are you a Find a Grave volunteer?  Do you get many requests?

Attending a living history day at a cemetery, that’s what!

Last week, my daughter and I went to Concordia Cemetery, here in El Paso, for their annual “Walk Through History”.

It was uncomfortably hot (even in mid-October) and there wasn’t any shade, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time. She even got put in jail for a picture.

We watched a gunfight show, put on by Six Guns and Shady Ladies.  Lexie was okay as long as she managed to cover her ears before the shots. 

We also listened to actors portraying different local legends and telling their stories, including gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.

I always love learning about the local history of all of the different places that we live.  It’s so interesting!!

I’ve taken my kids to cemeteries a number of times and they aren’t exactly the most hip happening places to be.  Especially when Mom has no idea where the tombstones she’s searching for are located.  And the inscriptions are worn away.  It sometimes takes a while.

So, I made a couple of scavenger hunts for kids. The first one is pretty basic, for the younger set.  The second is a little bit more detailed – for my older kids.  These might not work so well at really small cemeteries, but if you’re in a small one then you probably won’t be there long enough to need a scavenger hunt, right?

I hope that there are some other parents/grandparents who will be able to use these.   I can’t wait to try them out on my kids!  I just wish that I had an ancestor that was buried in the El Paso area – or anywhere in the Southwest for that matter.  It might be a while before we do a cemetery trip.

This is the really simple one for the little kids – even non-readers.  You can download it in Word or as a PDF.

And here is the version for the older kids.  In Word and PDF.

Enjoy!

At the Halferty Cemetery in Keokuk county, I was able to find the gravestones of my great-great-great grandparents.  Their stones were worn, but in tact and still readable (I will post them on another day).

I was appalled at the fate  of the neighboring gravestones though.

After spending a couple of days in rural Iowa, I can imagine that it sometimes gets boring.  I had little to no cell phone coverage.  There wasn’t a Starbucks or a movie theater or a shopping mall in sight.  I get that.  Kids get bored and look for things to do.

I have heard of farm kids going “cow tipping” before, but have you ever heard of “gravestone tipping”?

I have to admit that I”m making some assumptions here.  I don’t know exactly what happened in this cemetery.  All I know is that it wasn’t Mother Nature that knocked these down.  And I’m assuming that it had to be some adolescent punks, because I can’t imagine anyone else doing this.

Many of the gravestones were pushed over, off of their bases, left in the grass.

The funny thing is, the cemetery appears to be maintained.  The grass had been mowed sometime in the past couple of weeks.  There is a fence surrounding it.

How could someone do something like that?

I wasn’t sure what to do or who to complain to.  It isn’t a church or city cemetery. Even though it wasn’t my ancestors, I was still upset.

But I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t do anything.  I took my pictures and drove on to the next county to do some more research.

What would you have done?

Should I try to contact someone – perhaps the local genealogical or historical society?

I had considered video taping our walk, but for some reason I had visions of it becoming a Blair-Witch type movie and decided against it.  I obviously watch too many movies.

I really don’t have an irrational fear of the woods.  I grew up on an island in the Puget Sound, surrounded by nothing but trees.  It was the “No Trespassing” signs nearby and the fact that I was possibly doing just that, that had me freaked out.  Oh, and the lack of cell phone coverage.

Think happy thoughts.  Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts.

The happy thoughts worked.

As we turned a corner and looked up the hill, we saw it.

There, in the middle of the woods. almost half a mile down an unmarked path, was a well-maintained, fenced cemetery.

There was a nice wooden sign.

And a new stone with their last name on it.

And flowers on the graves.

This was obviously lovingly maintained by living relatives.  I was amazed.

But the biggest surprise to me was that there was more than the four graves I had been told about.

I was expecting to find my great-great-great grandparents, Austin and Eliza Jane (Hensley) Agee. And I did.

I knew that their son Jesse and his wife Iowa were also buried there.

But that was it. I had never heard mention of any others.

What I didn’t expect was the grave of Austin and Jesse’s father (my 4th great-grandfather) John Agee, Jr.  He had a newly engraved stone.  (Which poses the question – Who placed it there and how are they sure that it is him?)

There were also a few old rocks used as headstones and footstones to unmarked graves.

Could the one next to John be his wife, Sena Hilton?  Possibly.

I don’t know who the others might belong to.  Here is one of them.  I wonder if it once said something.

An There was one other marked grave in the cemetery.  I will have to find out who she was.  Possibly one of Jesse’s daughters.

I wanted to mention that I found the positioning of the stones kind of odd..  Don’t you think this is an awkward way to place them? They are actually facing each other.

So, as always, answers lead to more questions.  But I like it that way.

Here is the view as we left the cemetery. It is truly in the woods.

And I’m so glad that I didn’t chicken out and pass the trail up for another day. A dry and sunny day.  A day that I had my husband and a gun with me.  But I have to admit that I heaved a great sigh of relief when we rounded the corner and could see our vehicle again.

If you’re ever in the Woolwine area and are looking for the Agee Cemetery, contact me and I will give you some very specific directions!!!  It’s really there, even though there isn’t a sign.

Here is a transcription of the sign:

AFRICAN CEMETERY AT HIGGS BEACH

Near this site lie the remains of 294 African men, women, and children who died in Key West in 1860.  In the summer of that year, the U.S. Navy rescued 1, 432  Africans from three American-owned ships engaged in the illegal slave trade. Ships bound for Cuba were intercepted by the U.S. Navy, who brought the freed Africans to Key West where they were provided with clothing, shelter, and medical treatment. They had spent weeks in unsanitary and inhumane conditions aboard the slave ships. The U.S. steamships Mohawk, Wyandott, and Crusader rescued these individuals from the Wildfire, where 507 were rescued; the William, where 513 were rescued;  and the Bogota where 417 survived. In all, 294 Africans succumbed at Key West to various diseased caused by conditions of their confinement. They were buried in unmarked graves on the present day Higgs Beach where West Martello Tower now stands. By August, more than 1,000 survivors left for Liberia, West Africa, where the U.S. Government supported them for a time. Hundreds died on the ships before reaching Liberia. Thus, the survivors were returned to their native land, Africa, but not to their original homes on that continent.

As much as I liked Bonaventure Cemetery, I think that I enjoyed my stroll through Colonial Park even more.  The cemetery is dotted with historical markers along with the gravestones.

I wonder how old this one is!

I just love the old stones.

The scenery throughout the area is beautiful too.

I think that this is the part of the cemetery that I love the most.  The back wall is covered with broken stones.

Too bad I don’t have any ancestors buried here!!  Do YOU?

We didn’t have much problem finding the small St. Andrew Catholic Cemetery just outside of town. It appears to have been the site of the first St. Andrew Catholic Church. I would have loved to have seen that.

It is a beautiful little cemetery.  I walked through most of it and was surprised at the number of people buried here with the last names I was looking for.  I could tell that many of the descendants had stayed in the area.  Also, the entire town must have been full of Germans!  There were row after row of German names.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will post many of the gravestones I found in this cemetery.

Here is one that is unrelated to me.  I thought that it was interesting though, because it was quite old.  I could make out that the person was born in 1785.

My husband’s Campbell and Baker ancestors lived in this area, and a few of them are buried here.

This is the grave of Catharine (Baker) Campbell.  She was the first wife of Rev. Joseph Campbell.  She died 22 Dec 1851 at the age of 33 yrs, 11 months, and  6 days. leaving behind 4 young children.

How tragic.  It really hits home for me, because I’m about the same age and have 5 small children.  I can’t imagine not being there to see them grow up.

Joseph Campbell remarried to another Catherine – Catherine Palmer and they also had 4 children together.

They moved on to Kansas, so Joseph is not buried here in this cemetery along with her.

Here is the church:

It sounds silly, but I really wish I had family buried there.

It’s gorgeous – the hanging Spanish Moss, the shady oak trees, the old tombstones and family plots.

Do any of you have ancestors in this famous cemetery?

James Patrick Thornton (1824-1887) was my immigrant ancestor.  He lived in Alton, but moved on to Nebraska in the 1870′s.

His brother Phillip and his family stayed in Madison county, Illinois.  They were buried in Greenwood Cemetery in nearby Godfrey, Illinois.  I believe that it is owned by the church.

Philip Thornton born in Ireland 29 Sep 1831 and died 10 Feb 1898.

Margaret Thornton born in Ireland 10 Aug 1829 and died 10 May 1888.

Here is their son, James Paul Thornton.  Born 19 Sep 1858 and died 3 Jan 1925.  His wife was Catherine (1865-1948).

And Philip’s son Edward Charles Thornton (1868 to 1906).  His wife Albertine.

And Philip’s son Michael:

I will post my Pottgen findings next week….

On my recent cross-continent trip, I managed to stop in Bedford, Virginia.

Did you know that they are home to the National D-Day Memorial? Their town lost more men per capita than any other on D-day.

I didn’t get  a chance to actually go and see the memorial, because I had one precious day to hit 3 neighboring Virginia counties.

I would have had an extra day, but we happened to arrive in the area on a Thursday night and we weren’t able to stay through Monday.  That gave me one day to hit the courthouses and the genealogy library before they were closed for the weekend.  I had to work fast.

My poor husband was in the van with my 5 not-so-happy kids.  We were nearing the end of our journey and they weren’t very excited about being strapped in anymore.  They were especially not excited about sitting outside of the Bedford County Courthouse for 2 1/2 hours.

I managed to slip across the street to the genealogy library for a few minutes after having made a stack of copies from the will books at the courthouse.  I did a quick search through the tombstone census for the county and I was able to find the gravestones of my 6th great grandparents – or rather their lack of gravestones.

The tombstone census stated the following about the cemetery that they were buried in (which is near Moneta,VA in Bedford county):

“This cemetery has been bulldozed over but Mr. Nance gave us the following names of people who are buried there: Somon Hancock, Jane Flournoy Hancock, Edward Hancock,  Jane Nichols Hancock, Christopher Hancock, Simon Hancock, and others (slaves).

Evidence of a cemetery having been present just SE of a tree and a large flint rock and W of the barn and E of the old home site.  An old iron post has worked its way to the surface of the pasture in this area.  There are several sunken areas.”

The informant was a Mr. Ray Nance on Jan. 30, 1992.

I am elated to have found where their last resting place is.

It saddens me though to know that they no longer have visible markers of their burial sites.

It makes me wonder if  there is something I can do about it.

Maybe I could find other descendants and see about getting permission from whoever currently owns the land to put up a single gravestone in the vicinity of where they were buried?  I have no idea what the cost would be for a stone, but since Simon died in 1791, my guess is that he has a large number of descendants.

Any ideas?  Have any of you done this before?

First with my hives.  Yuck.

Then we decided to hop in the van and take a little drive.  We went from Fairbanks to Valdez to Anchorage to Denali and back to Fairbanks again.  Over 1,000 miles. In 2 days.  It was a gorgeous drive with beautiful scenery.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many mountains in my life.  Everywhere we turned, there were more. Here is Denali (aka Mt. McKinley) which is impressively humongous.

And do you know what?  I still managed to get some genealogy done.  Because I’m sneaky like that.

While we were in Anchorage, we stopped at Ft. Richardson to get something at the PX.

And I managed to talk my husband into stopping at the National Cemetery on Post.  I knew that my mom’s Uncle “Red” Walden Bergman was buried there, along with his wife June.  He was stationed up here while he was in the Army and he ended up staying. This is the only picture that I have of him.  I never knew him, because he died when I was 2.

I was worried that it was going to be hard to find the gravestone, but I was pleasantly surprised.

They had a book outside, full of all the names of the people buried there, with sections and grave numbers listed.  If only every cemetery was as organized!

Here is his gravestone:

We just sold our house in rural North Pole and moved into a hotel in downtown Fairbanks for the next few weeks.  (SEVEN of us in ONE room!!)

It’s kind of nice being in town. Everything is so close by.

My daughter and I went for a walk this morning.  We came upon an old cemetery and the caretaker (a very nice guy) walked us around and showed us some of the older graves.

The Clay Street Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Fairbanks and is on the National Register of Historic Places.  There are many old miners buried there and some Russian immigrants.  I decided to take a couple of pictures, because I couldn’t resist.

I liked this one, because I thought it was an interesting name. Huhtasaari – that’s a different one, isn’t it? And this one is a Russian immigrant.  I always wished I had some Russian ancestry, because I studied Russian in school. Do you have an ancestor buried in this cemetery?  I’m here for another 3 weeks.  If anyone wants a picture of a specific gravestone, I’m more than happy to take one!