Genealogical Gems

Find A Grave is a great resource. Sometimes, you can find the name, birth date, death date, parents, spouse and children from an entry. Some entries include an obituary. This morning I added a few entries to the Hephzibah Baptist Cemetery. The church/cemetery is located on Strasburg Road in East Fallowfield Township, Chester County. The link here below will allow you to search just that cemetery or - if you click the scroll down arrow - all of the millions of entries in their database. Search for cemetery records in Hephzibah Baptist Church Cemetery, PA at by entering a surname and clicking search: Hephzibah Baptist Church Cemetery, PA (2,375 names) All of Find A Grave (138.9 million names) Restrict search to Surname Now, I do feel obligated to remind readers that Find A Grave is a volunteer contributed database. This means you should use the database as a guide or a secondary source but not "the Gospel truth." Sometimes it is not necessa...

Walter G. Deyoe died when he was only three years old. I know little of him. He is the son of Daniel and Louise Sharp Deyoe, my husband’s great grandparents. Walter was born on 11 February 1871 and died on 30 March 1874. Since he was born and died between census records, the only proof per se I have of his existence is Find A Grave and other Deyoe researchers.  I have not found an obituary or church record for him yet either. He is buried in the Deyoe Family Cemetery, Greene County, NY. The stone pictured here is from Find A Grave  (by B rian Christensen ) and I have seen it in several trees that include young Walter. It shows a lamb, which is so often used for graves of children. The lamb symbolizes innocence. Some sources also say the lamb symbolizes the Lamb of God.   Wednesday's Child is a genealogical prompt of GeneaBloggers.   © Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman, 2014

Often, when tracing my husband’s family which contains some very common names for Lancaster County , I will take photos of potentials. So awhile back, I was at the Clearfield UM Church Cemetery down Providence Township , Lancaster County and I stumbled across a stone – this stone here – that simply read “Brother” across the top for a C. Columbus Winters. Close enough to my Eliza Winter who married a Socrates Miller. Today instead of just throwing up a photo of a stone for Tombstone Tuesday, I decided to go fishing … and did I get a bite!   C. Columbus Winters, as mentioned, is buried in the Clearfield UM Church Cemetery . He was born 11 February 1858 and passed on 15 December 1906, according to his tombstone.   He had been sick for 13 days prior to his passing, suffering lobar pneumonia, according to his death certificate.   His death certificate, which states he was single, confirms his vitals. It also provides his first name as (what else!) Christoph...

I joined a Polish Genealogy group on Facebook and came across a resource, similar I suppose to our white pages here. The site, Moikrewni , led me to realize that the surname Matys is more common that I had thought.   There are, according to this site, 2,446 people with the last name Matys. That said, it does say "people" as opposed to "families" or "households."   On a whim, I searched for Matys in Ancestry.com using only a location as "Fraga, Poland" (which by the way did not self populate. The results? Over 47,000 entries! I should point out that I currently only have the US edition of Ancestry. I am so close to upgrading but I wanted to wait until I had several lines ready to cross the pond, to make it cost effective.   Find A Grave (yes I realize it is now owned by Ancestry.com) revealed 52 entries using only the last name Matys as my search requirements. That's a little more manageable! It also includes some from Poland, ...

Andrew Gregg Curtin was the Governor of Pennsylvania during our nation's Civil War.  The son of Scots-Irish immigrant iron founder Roland Curtin (1764–1830) and his second wife, Jean Gregg (1791–1854), he was born 22 April 1815 in Bellefonte in Centre County. He was the grandson of Pennsylvania politician and president pro tem of the U.S. Senate, Andrew Gregg. Before becoming Governor, he served as schools superintendent. During that time, he started the state system of teacher training in "normal" schools - like Lock Haven State Normal School, now Lock Haven State University. As a war-time governor, he did sponsor taxes to finance the war but managed to keep the state's debt low. More military units for the war were organized in Harrisburg than in any other recruiting point in the North. He organized "The Loyal War Governors' Conference" to foster support among fellow governors. It was this unified group of governors who suggested General George ...

The playground of an elementary school in North Philadelphia was built on the grounds of a former cemetery. The unusual aspect of this news is that Philadelphia City Water Department workers dug up graves and skulls while excavating the playground ... A 1953 topo map on HistoricalAerials.com confirms the site as an IOOF Cemetery . IOOF is the standard abbreviation for the International Order of Odd Fellows ... Find A Grave does list 2,054 internments. Click HERE to read the full article as it appeared on Examiner.com.

I finally joined the Find A Grave network! I hate writing bios. I always feel so self concious but I did finally come up with this: I am searching Ruczhak/Hruszczak, Matyz, Kurenda, Skrabalek, Romanko, Still, Welsh/Walsh, Kilpatrick, Durkin, O'Flaherty, Keating, VanHorn, Rice, Bing, Way, Williams, and Dudbridge. I am slso searching Eckman, Miller, Kirchner, Herr, Slaymaker, Kuhn, Deyoe, Schermerhorn, and Sharp. As you can guess my research has taken across many counties, states and nations. I look forward to being an active member here. Feel free to check out Genealogical Gems at http://genealogybyjeanne.blogspot.com/ . If you need photos in Lancaster or Chester Counties you can request it through the Find A Grave site. I am listed there under my full name: Jeanne Ruczhak-Eckman. Thanks!