where2look4ancestors

Tag: Find A Grave

  • Why Every Genealogist Needs a Cemetery Kit

    The grave is supposed to be in here… But where? Maybe there? Feeling around for the edges… Marking out the shape… Clearing away the debris… Trimming the grass… Sweeping off the surface… Brushing out the engraving… Claiming a place in the row… Gone but not forgotten. Sometimes…if you are still…

  • Who Owns this Jewish Cemetery?

    I shared the story of what I hope to be my first of many trips to Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery here. Way in the back of Oak Woods we saw this: If you look closely, you’ll see headstones hidden among what appears to be just a vacant field in the…

  • 15 Cemetery Kit Must Haves

    My husband and I shared the cemetery kit I mentioned here. It worked well if we were graving together or close to the car, but that isn’t always the case. When we are searching for a grave, we generally divide and conquer. “I’ll walk the rows on the left if you…

  • Touring Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery

    Timing is everything. Rough draft plans for a mid-October road trip were on the table. Chicago, Door County Wisconsin, and Mackinac Island Michigan were the top contenders. I was Google-ing our options when I saw the “Civil War to Civil Rights” tour offered by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. At Oak…

  • A Final Resting Place for Jacob Mueller

    My second great-grandfather Jacob Koebe Mueller was buried at Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery one hundred and four years ago today. During our trip to Chicago last weekend, my husband and I had the opportunity to visit Oak Woods Cemetery and see Jacob’s grave site in person. I had called ahead to…

  • I Forgot My Cemetery Kit

    As a result, I couldn’t fix this: Husband and I recently took a genealogical road trip to Illinois. First Stop – Judy Russell. The Legal Genealogist spoke at the Chicago Genealogical Society meeting in Arlington Heights. That was a day well spent. Next up – locate the final resting place of…

  • A Second Look at December

    Organizing one’s family history research is practically a full time job, isn’t it? I already have a full time job, so I have to get (and stay!) organized to make the most of the tiny windows of time I have available to actually do research. December first I began scanning records…

  • 1903 Obituaries – December 10

    From the front page of the December 10, 1903 issue of the Chicago Daily News; “DROPS TO DEATH AS AID COMES John Warner’s Strength Fails and He Falls 100 Feet. Clinging to a projecting beam 100 feet above the bottom of the stairway shaft in the Railway Exchange building, John…

  • 1903 Obituaries – December 5

    From the December 5, 1903 issue of the Chicago Daily News, page 14; “BACKMAN-ELMER, In memory of beloved nephew of Capt. and Mrs. M. S. Smith, who died one year ago to-day, Dec. 5, 1902. G.B.N.T.” “BOEHM-ELIZABETH, wife of Joseph Boehm, mother of George, Carl, Val, Louisa and Christ Boehm,…

  • Zora (Clarke) Highbarger 1857-1940

    From the January 26, 1940 edition of the Funkstown Daily Mail; “Mrs. Zora Highbarger, widow of John Highbarger, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. William King, Woodburg, Baltimore County, on Thursday afternoon, at 2:00 o’clock. She was born and reared in Downsville but has lived in Baltimore for…