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Virtually, I've seen the grave sites of some of my maternal great, 2nd great, etc., grandparents buried in North Carolina from the 1800s via FindAGrave.
Just about all of my family is buried in Hungary except a few siblings of both of my mother's parents. I hope to be well enough to travel there one day. I have a bad back. I'd need to be sedated on the airplane...
So for me it would be a relative of my hub's mother's mother born in 1845
My hub's mothers parents have relatives buried in the same cemetery as my son's fathers side. My son's great grandmother, both of her kids (my son's grandfather) are buried there too plus my ex-brother in laws wife so we would visit everyone. My sons were buried fairly close to my hubs relatives.
Hillside Cemetery was the place to be buried back in the late 1800's to early 1900's. It wasn't far from where I used to work at my dads gas and service station.
One of the last times we were there, we were shocked to see a headstone that said Dudley Moore; thought it couldn't be actor Dudley Moore buried there, but as we walked closer, we were able to read musician, actor, comedian. His wiki said he died in Plainfield NJ which I was very surprised to read. Plainfield used to be a beautiful town. There's a lot of gorgeous old houses including the Swain art Gallery.
The town got bad in the late 70's. There were all sorts of shootings. Someone was stopped at a light, I guess the person wanted their car, they killed him for it. I had a moped in 1980 when I was 15. I used to ride it thru Plainfield because there was no other way for me to get to work. I was always afraid someone would jump me while stopped at a light.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wac_432
Tried to visit my great-great-great maternal grandparent's graves, with my wife, in Molynrovce, Slovakia. Backpacked across Europe. Couchsurfed with a cool guy in Kosice that let us borrow his cell phone. Rented a Skoda and drove deep into the hinterlands to Molynrovce (looks a lot like Michigan). Took along great-great maternal grandmother's immigration papers.
Showed papers to the locals. Lots of excited chattering. They talked on the phone to the english/slovak-speaking couchsurf dude in Kosice, Slovakia. He said "I can't understand their local dialect. Where the hell are you?!" Nobody spoke English, German, or Chinese, so we couldn't communicate much.
Ate a weird jelly-meat snack with a friendly local family. Pointed to a map and tried to communicate where we came from. Never saw any graves. Got chased off by a weird dude while wandering the village.
Fun experience.
Wife's family urns are all in the same shrine going back a lot of generations.
What a journey you had. I guess it was before google translate. Google translate isn't accurate for Hungarian
My oldest I have visited and my parents are buried with them died in 1919. We found my husband's gg plot in Provincetown. He died in 1889. His first wife and baby are buried there as well. They died in 1851. His second wife died around 1900 (off the top of my head I can't recall exact year, it was either 1899 or 1901) and she is buried there as well and she is the tie to the Mayflower lineage.
My (young adult) kids found themselves stuck in Salem MA one day and pinged me for a name. They left flowers on the marker of Samuel Ward[w]ell, one of the last witches hanged (1692) and in the oldest generation of our family here. There are other ancestors born earlier but because of his young age I believe his is the oldest gravesite.
(Edit: nope, one patriarch preceded him. Haven't visited that site.)
My brother has visited 400+ year-old ancestral graves in Norway.
Visiting cemeteries is not my "thing" but on the topic, I've inherited about five cemetery deeds from various ancestors and relatives of ancestors (like the father of my great grandmother's brother-in-law). All in New York, about 2000 miles away from me. I have no idea what to do with them. Any ideas?
Visiting cemeteries is not my "thing" but on the topic, I've inherited about five cemetery deeds from various ancestors and relatives of ancestors (like the father of my great grandmother's brother-in-law). All in New York, about 2000 miles away from me. I have no idea what to do with them. Any ideas?
Are the plots full? The cemeteries active? Perhaps you could sell the empty spaces.
Otherwise, the deeds become genealogical artifacts.
Just about all of my family is buried in Hungary except a few siblings of both of my mother's parents.
Where, exactly?
If they're from the East, they're probably not Magyars. One of the kings gave Slovaks land if they would help defend against the Ottomans.
So, from Nyiregyhaza down to Bekescsaba are all Slovaks. Yeah, some are Magyars, but the vast majority are descended from Slovaks. You can trace family names back to Slovakia.
Are the plots full? The cemeteries active? Perhaps you could sell the empty spaces.
Otherwise, the deeds become genealogical artifacts.
I know one of the family plots (near where I grew up) has space for one more urn, but I don't know about the others. One is in a huge cemetery in Queens where my maternal grandparents are buried and I think some other relatives, with shared headstones. I don't know if it's full. Do I have the right to "sell" any empty spaces just because I happen to be in possession of the deeds? I'm not mentioned in any of them. One is from 1920 in the name of a great grand aunt. I can see in FindAGrave that she and her husband and his first wife are all buried together there with a single headstone. I can't tell how many can fit in the plot.
About 6 years ago I was in Omaha for a visit, and I decided to go to a town in the northwest corner of Missouri to find the grave site of my great-great grandfather. I had the name of the town (Rock Port) and the name of the cemetery, but did not know exactly where the grave was located. It was under 2 hours drive south from Omaha along the Missouri River on interstate highway, so easy to get there.
My GG grandfather died in 1872 when he was in his 40s, so relatively young. Life was tough in that era, there was probably almost no medical care available in that area of rural Missouri, near the boundary with Iowa and Nebraska. He was married with 5 children, but one of his sons died within a few days of my GG Grandfather. This leads me to believe the cause of death of both was an illness.
When I got to Rock Port, MO, I got out my smartphone and found the cemetery on google maps. It was cold (10 or 15 degrees F) with some snow and ice on the ground. I got to the cemetery and found nobody else and no directory, not surprising for a small town. There were hundreds of graves and tombstones, and I had no idea where to start. I noticed many of the older graves were in the middle of the cemetery, sort of grouped by decade. By luck, I found my GG grandfather's grave, and that of his son (side by side) within about 5 minutes. I was impressed that both had not just a cross, but a rather impressively carved tombstone with name, date of birth and death, and verse and some artistic borders. The letters were worn thin by almost 150 years of weather.
What / where is the oldest grave site of a direct ancestor that you have visited?
Definitely not that old, maybe 1930s.
Keep in mind him dying in his 40s in 1872 was not relatively young at that time.That's about what the average life span was back then.
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