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By: Linda Herrick Swisher
Planning is everything. Genealogists don't always realize or remember that, as is evidenced by the following experience I had while helping my father research our roots.
Back in the mid-1980s, my father and I went to Iowa to research his mother's family. (My paternal grandparents died before I got interested in family history.) It wasn’t the first such trip for my dad. A year before, Dad and his brother had gone to Iowa to attend a relative's funeral. They had met with Paul, their mother's first cousin, who seemed "out of it" and did not recognize them, and therefore wasn’t much help. So on this trip, Dad planned to speak to Paul's eldest sister, Velma, who "knew everything about the family."
Nowadays, before we leave home we jump online for information about the counties, the towns, and the sources of the area we are going to visit. We print maps and look for Web sites for societies and libraries. We check the Family History Library Catalog.
Before the Internet, it was a lot harder—but not impossible—to prepare for a trip. In our case, I could have written letters or checked a Family History CenterTM. However, time was tight, and Dad lived by the maxim "Why call or write when, with a lot more effort, you can talk to a real, live person?"
So we went to Iowa. First, we visited cemeteries. Then we went to the courthouse, historical society, and library. Then we met with relatives. But if I could go back in time, I'd do things differently. As it turned out, though, I learned a few valuable lessons from the experience.
Lesson #1
At the Quaker cemetery, Dad said, "Nobody I know would be in here." I looked down and saw the gravestone of Dad's cousin Bob. Dad didn't know he had died.
Lesson Learned: Check for obituaries—either online, published, in a card index, or in some other format.
Lesson #2
In Smith Cemetery, there were no stones for Dad's great-grandparents. We found a stone for two little boys, sons of Dad's uncle Will. These young cousins had died before Dad was born, and he had forgotten about them.
Lesson Learned: Check societies first. The historical society had a late-1930s WPA cemetery survey. Great-grandmother and one of her sons were in Smith Cemetery, but their graves had metal funeral home markers. The survey gave the information on the markers, which are, of course, long gone.
Lesson #3
We saw the grave of Lorraine, the second wife of Dad's uncle. The stone called her "Lurana," a name with which we weren't familiar. Dad insisted the stone was wrong, but I knew about name variants and said that perhaps the stone was correct. Vital records later verified that.
Lesson Learned: Check the vital records first; then visit the cemetery. Vital records could have provided distinguishing and clarifying information. For example, as it turned out, Lorraine/Lurana was the THIRD wife, not second. Also, Dad wasn’t aware of his uncle's first marriage. A marriage record may have told us about this beforehand.
This would have helped in the case of Dad's great-grandmother as well (see Lesson #2). In her 70s, she had married again after the death of her first husband. In how many sources had she been listed under a new surname?
Lesson #4
Also at Lorraine’s grave, and as a recent tip suggested, I copied the names on the stones next to hers so we could find her stone again. This turned out to be extremely helpful. When we saw Lurana's maiden name later, I realized it was the same as that of the couple buried next to her—probably her parents. That gave us one more avenue to search.
Lesson Learned: Always copy the names on the stones near your relatives’ graves. These neighboring stones may belong to collateral relatives. Checking vital records beforehand, as in Lesson #3, could also have helped here by showing us other surnames (Lorraine's maiden name) to search for in the cemetery.
Lesson #5
Dad's great-grandfather wasn't in the WPA survey. Courthouse death records said he was buried in the cemetery of a town that hadn't existed for decades. The cemetery wasn't on a map in the courthouse. A history book gave us the town's location. We visited the cemetery.
Lesson Learned: Check all old maps and atlases. The cemetery was on the courthouse map, but under a new name.
Lesson #6
Cousin Velma, whom Dad said, "knew everything," suffered from Alzheimer's disease and lived in a nursing home. Her brother, Cousin Paul, had a photo of a family reunion. However, he was much younger than Velma and didn't know all the people in the picture.
Lesson Learned: Don't wait to speak to older relatives. (Interestingly, Paul wasn't "out of it" this time. During Dad's visit the year before, Paul was in the midst of a diabetic crisis and was later admitted to the hospital.)
Lessons #7 & 8
We copied Paul's photo and brought it to his cousin Cora, who knew most of the people pictured. We asked her about Great-Grandpa's unmarked grave in the "lost" cemetery. She had been there several times. Her father and uncle had often debated about exactly where they buried Great-Grandpa. Cora said she "didn't know much" about the family; it was hard to take notes since she refused to let me use the tape recorder on my "boom box."
Lesson Learned: What is common knowledge to one person may be the missing piece in someone else's research. As the oldest surviving cousin, Cora solved several of my problems.
Another Lesson Learned: Bring a tape or video recorder, the smaller the better (but see the next lesson).
Lesson #9
Dad's mother once lived in the next county. A cemetery transcription listed relatives buried there. We found the cemetery and, planning to rely on photos, didn't take good notes. The photos did not turn out. Our schedule and the long distance prevented us from returning to the cemetery.
Lesson Learned: For really important sources, don't rely on one method of recording information.
Lesson #10
The last cemetery we visited was larger, newer, and the only one that had an office on-site. Dad knew of several relatives buried there. This cemetery had plat maps of the other cemeteries!
Lesson Learned: Check local funeral homes and cemetery offices before visiting gravesites.
Lessons #11 & 12
We hit the library bright and early on a day when it didn't open until noon. We were at loose ends, not knowing what to do next.
Lesson Learned: Have a plan of attack. If something upsets Plan A, go to Plan B.
Another Lesson Learned: Check the library hours, available collections, and other specifications online or by phone BEFORE you leave home. Use them to help you form your plan of attack.
The Most Important Lessons of All . . .
The most important lessons of all, though, involve your safety. Search cemeteries in pairs or groups. If you go alone, take a cellular phone or tell someone where you're going and when you'll be back. What can happen?
1) Deserted or urban cemeteries may attract people bent on mischief, or worse. Don't leave your car unlocked, your purse on the seat, or your keys in the ignition. Don't get so engrossed in the stones that you are unaware of people around you. Keep your car nearby. If you need to leave in a hurry, you don't want your car a block away.
2) A recent Ancestry Quick Tip suggested watching out for snakes. Also be prepared in case you: run into dangerous weather conditions; twist your ankle; develop sunstroke; have a health emergency; are chased by animals or livestock; fall in a hole; have an allergic reaction to an insect bite; have a large, unstable tombstone topple on you; or become locked inside the cemetery because the staff doesn't know you're there.
(For these reasons, you might want to think twice about taking young children along on your cemetery jaunt.)
3) If you go in a group, don't leave one member there alone. At the end of one society cemetery transcription session (and in the days before cell phones), my car wouldn't start. Luckily, a few people were still there, and I begged a ride to my parents' house.
We have more tools than ever before to allow proper research trip preparation. We use travel guides when going to unfamiliar places. Why not use the Internet, online classes, books, vital records, relatives or helpful locals, and other sources as "travel guides" on your cemetery research trips.
Linda Herrick Swisher writes a family history column in The Star, a newspaper serving Chicago's south suburbs, and in Country News, a new, monthly rural lifestyle publication. She is a freelance writer, a lecturer, a Webmaster, and an officer in two genealogical societies. |
