Tombstone Tuesday - October 20, 2009

While these people have no connection to my family I thought I would add it anyway as an interesting side note.  Yesterday was one of our few Indian summer days of this fall so I stopped on my way home from my PMP Study Group session at two interesting cemeteries along Illinois Route 176 and took some pictures of some interesting tombstones.  I have not added them to findagrave.com yet but I will.  The first cemetery was Ivanhoe which dates back to 1852.

As you can see there are many old stones and this is a very well mantained cemetery.  It is beautiful on a fall day.  I found some interesting tombstone style which I have never seen before. 

These are metal tombstone monuments for the wives of John Ragan.  Hannah Ragan died at the age of 32 in 1847 and Hepsibah died in 1884 at the age of 80. These monuments are beautiful  and so well preserved.  Granite stones which date back to 1870's may not be legible.

 In all of my years of investigating cemeteries, I had never seen a metal monument.  So I got on the internet and did a bit of reserach.  These metal stones are cast from zinc.  Zinc forms a coating of zinc carbonate which when exposed to the weather, is rust resistent but turns to this light blue hue.  Two men were creditied with the perfecting of casting these types of monuments in 1873, they were M.A. Richardson and C.J. Willard.  They did not have the capital to start a factory so they contracted with W.W. Evans.   Evans eventually gave up on the idea and sold the rights off to Wilson, Parsons & Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

These monuments were available from 1874-1914. The government took over the factory during WW1 for the manufacturing of munitions.  After the war the demand for the metal monuments was never revived. The company was dissolved in 1939.  Several subsidiaries operated the midwest, one opened in Detriot in 1881, called Detroit Bronze which operated for 4 years before closing.  In 1886 in Chicago, American Bronze opened. It operated for 23 years before closing in 1908. In Des Moines, Western White Bronze Company operated for twenty two years, closing in 1908.  Thanks to Mark Culver for his article on "Metal Monuments of Greenwood Cemetery"  which helped me to learn about the origins of these beautiful monuments.

This is also a metal monument from the same Ragan family plot. The next Photo is of rounded top stones which I thought were unique too.  I do not recall seeing stones that were this thick with rounded tops before.

This is the Traut Family Plot.  The first stone is for Catherine Ann Traut who died at the age of 90 years old on January 13, 1904.  The middle stone was for Michael Traut who died November 26, 1880.  The last stone is for John H. Traut, son of Catherine and Michael Traut who died in 1871 at the age of 25 years and 10 months.  These stones a very hard to read as compared to the metal ones which we looked at earlier.  I hope you enjoyed your fall tour of the Ivanhoe cemetery as much as I did.

Many of the Genealogy Blogs do a article on Tuesdays called Tombstone Tuesday so I thought I would join them since I am so interested in cemeteries.  Northern Illinois has some interesting old, unique cemeteries which I like to visit so I will take you along!

The Church that it has become…

Early in my family history search I came across a gold mine for a family historian. I was visiting the Nine Mile Church for the first time to try to verify that the James Smith buried in the cemetery was our “James Smith”. I had knocked on the door of the parsonage in hopes of being able to talk to the Minister of the church. I wasn’t even sure that this house was the parsonage but it looked like it was. It was a nice brick home much like the homes that my Grandparents had lived in while Grandpa Everett was a minister. The brick looked like the same as the bricks the church had been built with.

Eventually a middle aged woman answered the door. She was dressed in a nice pair of dress slacks with a very pretty blouse. I sensed that she was on her way out of the door for a very important meeting. I explained who I was and what had brought me to Nine Mile Indiana. The reaction on her face was a bit of surprise followed by a large warm smile. She offered her hand to me in a warm welcome. We chatted about the church a bit but she did not know much about its history. At this point in my search I could not be certain if this was my family or not. I had hoped the find out that the church had lots of old records and they would be able to answer all my questions! For a Family historian this is the equivalent of hitting the lottery! No such luck for me this day!

She was a very nice lady and as it turned out she was the minister. It bought a smile to my face. Oh much had changed since the days that Grandpa Everett was a minister. In their day, Grandma Lillian would have been answering the door. She would have had a dress on with her apron wrapped around her waist careful to wipe her hands before opening the door and inviting you in. The parsonage door was always open to visitors.

My sense that she was on her way out the door turned out to be true; she was headed to the hospital to visit with a church member. She asked if I wanted to see the church. “I’ll unlock it for you and when I return in an hour or so I’ll close it up then.” I told her that would be wonderful. We walked across the street chatting about the church and the quaint cemetery which surrounds it. She unlocked the door and opened it for me. Inviting me in, she said “enjoy your visit and I hope you find what you are looking for.” “I’ll be back in an hour or so to lock up”, she said. I went into the church and she walked back to the parsonage getting in her car and driving away. I thought to myself that it is a shame that we must lock our church doors these days. In Grandpa’s day, the church was always open. You never knew when someone would need to have a few minutes with God.

The church looked very much like the churches of my childhood. In the vestibule there were stairs leading up to the sanctuary or down to what I imagines were Sunday school rooms and a nursery. As I walked into the sanctuary, my thoughts turn to Grandpa Everett, wondering if he had ever been here. Could this have been his church? As I sat in the back of the church in the pew, I took in the beauty of this sanctuary. It is arrange much like a Theater, the pews fanned out with the focal point being the alter. It was not large but very warm and inviting.
 

It felt good to sit here. It felt as if I belonged. The windows allowed the warm sun shine to bath the room in a rainbow of brilliant color. It is a beautiful room. As I sat there I couldn’t help but wonder if family members who I had not met had sat in these seats. I just knew this was a place that I was supposed to have found. So many baptisms, marriages and funerals were conducted here. Families have begun, flourished and been returned to their maker within the comfort of the walls of this sanctuary.

I sat there in the peace and stillness of this beautiful church, with God, Grandpa Everett and other family members who I had not met yet but was certain that I would meet them soon.

I was disappointed to find out that there were no Church records to speak of. “Oh we have a dusty old box in the corner of the Office downstairs which might have a few things in it” the minister had stated, “but probably nothing that will help you much.”

I decided that a trip to the wash room downstairs would be necessary before I got back in the car and headed to Chicago. The basement was dark. They had a nice fellowship hall, a kitchen, a nursery and restrooms. When I came out of the rest room, I was thinking about the church as I walked toward the stair way to leave. To the left of the stairway hanging on the wall, was a quilt. I was at first startled but soon intrigued by it. It has become the most exciting find for me in my family history search so far. It was my winning lottery ticket!

Who's your Daddy?

Have you ever looked at an early Census record? Looks a bit like chicken scratching. The early Census records were used to count the population in the US and it was done every ten years as it is today. In the Early years, the free persons and slaves were not counted together. For the 1790 and 1800, the census listed the male head of household and a count for each of the male children from 0 to 10 years old in column one of the record. In column 2, a count was entered for the male children from 10 – 20 years old. A count is entered for each of the males for each ten year increment after that until age 100. The second half of the form was for listing all the females in the household and each column was 10 year increments too.

As the population grew, the government decided to break down the children into smaller groups so beginning in 1820 the male head of household was listed and the first column was for males under the age of five years old or 0-5years, then 5-10 years, 10-15years and then 15-20 years and from there it incremented every 10 years until the age of 100 years old. I have seen very few persons listed after the 70 to 80 year column in the early census records.

So in the early census it was difficult to determine a person’s parentage. It was a bit of a guessing game. I would write down the children’s names and year of birth and tally them up in 5 year increments. Then find the father’s names and look at each of the column and see if they matched. Some times it was accurate and sometimes it was a little off. Sometimes a child would die from one census to then next and there would be no real way to know that. Some times you wondered if they could count. Was it the parent’s lack of education or was it the person doing the recording.

Looks like chicken scratching to me….

Some Churches were very good about keeping baptism records in larger cities but not in the small farming communities which dotted the American landscape. As families migrated westward, early churches services were often conducted in person’s homes by lay leaders. A Circuit Minister would come around on a regular interval to conduct a Church service and that was when a child or several children would be baptized. Records were rarely kept until there was a formal Church building in which the families gathered.

Starting in 1850, the US Federal Census required that all of the names of the household members be listed on the Census. Hurray! Now we don’t have to guess who is in the family. As a result, the 1850 census helped me early in my family history research.

In the 1850 and the 1860 federal census all the Smith children were listed in the Allen County Census. The oldest Smith children are in their late teens in 1850 and by 1860 they are in their late 20’s. I really had expect they would have been married and raising their own families by then. So as I searched for marriage records I looked for them after 1860. For years I looked for them, when I did not find them I began to think that there must be a mistake. Eventually I decided that the 1860 Federal Census must have been inaccurate. I suspect that Susannah did not understand what the Census taker wanted. I suspect that she thought that the census recorder ask how many children do you have. Instead of how many children live in your household.

 I would find that Margaret married Benjamin C Davis in 1851 and Mary Ann married Jonathan Kimble in 1853. Eventually I would find that Sarah would marry Robert Hood in 1861. William had moved on to Madison County, Indiana by the 1860 Census and he was counted in both Allen County and Madison Counties. Branson would be found in Madison County a short time after William. I had spent years looking for these children and their marriages in the wrong decades.

James Smith died in 1868 and is buried in the Nine Mile Cemetery with two daughters, a grandchild and two sons who died before him. By the 1870 Census, Susannah, and some of the younger Smith children, John F, Susan and Martha, are found living with Joseph, his wife Mary Catharine and their twin sons, Ashley and Ashland.  Henry C is now listed as Charles H. and he is counted with James W Smith and his wife, Oella and their son William F who live next door to Susanna and the other family members.

So now you know a bit about Census records. They are as accurate as they can be considering that so many woman did not receive and education. They are a tool to be used with other records.