Belated Tombstone Tuesday: A View of Placeway/Whitcomb Cemetery

I'm late in posting for this week's Tombstone Tuesday primarily because I visited the Placeway/Whitcomb Cemetery yesterday and took some pictures. The picture above is a partial view of the cemetery. I wasn't able to take a picture that outlined the size of the cemetery, so I had to take pictures of it in pieces. Unfortunately, the quality of the picture is not very good because I have a cheap digital camera. I hope to take some pictures with a different camera next time, so the pictures should be better the next time I post them.

Tombstone Tuesday: The Other Side of the Minnis/Oswalt Stone

Last week, I posted one side of the Minnis/Oswalt family stone in Beard Cemetery, and this week, I am posting the other side of the stone. As you can see, this picture is a view of Beard Cemetery towards the road it is on and the cemetery is located in a fairly isolated area. The cemetery is mostly surrounded by trees and open fields (from what I can remember), but there is a church that is next to the cemetery. Of course, that is if I have remembered everything correctly. Some day is the future I will write about how my grandparents, brother and I ended up at this cemetery.

Michigan Cemetery Atlas - Revisited

As you may remember, I wrote about an atlas that lists all of the cemeteries in Michigan a few months ago. Well, I happened to notice that Harold over at Midwestern Microhistory mentioned the book in an article over a week or so ago, and I thought I would just let everyone know. Enjoy!

Tombstone Tuesday: Another Grave Marker and a View of Beard Cemetery

The photograph above is of the stone behind the graves of Albert and Claudia Oswalt, and they share the stone with the Minnis family. The side facing towards the street has the Minnis name on it, and the other side of the stone has A. Oswalt written on it. (I will show that side next week.)

In this photograph you can also see the tombstones of other burials in Beard Cemetery. The person behind the stone is probably my grandfather who ended up in the picture by accident when I took the picture of the stone. (So far, all of the pictures of tombstones I have posted have been taken by me. Unfortunately, I did not take any photographs of the other graves in the Beard Cemetery, so I will not be able to show a close up of those tombstones. (Someday I might return to Beard Cemetery and take additional photographs.

Some Wintertime Cemetery Thoughts ...

This is just a post of some of my ramblings thoughts on cemeteries, Michigan and winter at the moment. I'll try not to post too many of these posts in the future, but I just wanted to post some thoughts today because I have not posted very much on this blog since I started it.

At the moment, I am unable to really take photographs of tombstones because of the obvious fact that the weather is not the best for taking pictures. Michigan (and many other states) is blanketed in snow, and thus, to take pictures of cemeteries at the moment would be a waste of film or space. Of course, there are a few cemeteries nearby that I could take pictures of, but the weather is not the best. Over this past weekend, my area got about 8 inches of snow on top of the couple of inches that it received from last week, and so, many tombstones in the cemetery closest to my home are covered. Yet, I am kicking my self because over the holidays the majority of the snow we received in December had melted away, and that would have been the best time for me to have taken pictures of the nearest cemetery. Of course, I probably would have walked to the cemetery since it is just close enough to walk to, but I did not do so because it was still fairly cold at the time. (I would have taken one of my dogs with me when I visited the place, as it is not a very good idea to visit a cemetery alone, and the walk would probably have been too long for him in the wintertime.) Plus, I would have to walk down a dirt road (I live in a rural area), and in the winter time, walking down the road is probably not the safest thing to do since there aren't any sidewalks.

As you can probably tell, I am slightly frustrated that I cannot take any pictures at the moment. I'll have to wait for another thaw or until spring before I can take new pictures. So, until then, I will be posting pictures of cemeteries and tombstones that I took a few years ago. (And some of those pictures have yet to be developed.) So, please stay tuned for more in the future. ...

Saginaw City Cemeteries Transcriptions

Although I realize that I am supposed to focus on Michigan rural cemeteries on this blog, I just felt I should mention that the City of Saginaw has put burial transcriptions of the three cemeteries it manages online. I've decided to mention the website anyway because I have a couple of ancestors who died in Saginaw, and I was waiting for the transcriptions to be completed so that I could look and see if my ancestors were buried in one of the three cemeteries. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find either of my ancestors buried in either of the cemeteries, but below is some more information on the website.

Saginaw manages the cemeteries of Oakwood, Brady Hill and Forest Lawn, and you can now search all three of the cemeteries' transcriptions here. Although I have not been successful, I hope that someone else will find this website helpful. Enjoy!

Tombstone Tuesday: Another Stout Grave

For this Tombstone Tuesday, I have decided to post a photograph of another Stout tombstone from Prairie River Cemetery. The grave above is of Laura (Tompkins) Stout, the second wife of my ancestor, Peter Stout. I am not descended from Laura, but from Peter's first wife. As far as I have been able to uncover, Peter and Laura did not have any surviving children, if they had any children at all. I hope you enjoy this photograph.

Tombstone Tuesday: A Grave Of A Stout Ancestor

The photo above is a picture of the grave of Peter Stout, my ancestor. He is buried in Prairie River Cemetery which is located in Centreville, Saint Joseph County, Michigan. Buried in the graves next to him are his second wife, oldest daughter and son-in-law. All, except for the son-in-law, have gravestones. For today, though, I have just decided to only post Peter's grave.

In the photo next to Peter's tombstone is a small marker that has, "perpetual care," written on it. Apparently someone had paid for the graves to be taken care of in the future. At the moment, I do not know who paid for this, but some day, I intend to look for any possible records, that is, if the records still exist. (I'll explain the reason why in another post.) Of course, I am grateful that someone paid for the graves to be cared for, and as one can see from the photo above, the tombstone is in excellent shape.

The Photo in the Header of the Blog ...

Since today is Halloween, I thought I would post on the photograph of the tombstones in my blog's header. Besides, what is more in spirit of Halloween than tombstones?

The photograph is a section of a picture I took of my ancestors' graves in the Prairie River Cemetery in Centreville, Saint Joseph county, Michigan. (I will be posting a little bit more on my ancestors' graves on Tuesday.) I just cropped out the the tombstones of my ancestors and left the rest of the tombstones in the picture. Nothing says graveyard better than a group of tombstones, right?

Anyhow, have a happy Halloween! Enjoy!

A List of Cemeteries I Hope To Talk About

I am not sure how many posts I will be posting between now and mid-December, but after Christmas, I definitely do plan on writing some posts on some cemeteries in Michigan. Here is just a list of cemeteries that I hope to eventually get around to posting on in the near future:

• Beard Cemetery, Saint Joseph County
• Calhoun Cemetery, Saint Joseph County
• Prairie River Cemetery, Saint Joseph County
• Placeway/Whitcomb Cemetery, Livingston County
• and of course many others ...

The cemeteries above are either ones where I have ancestors buried or ones that I am familiar with, and thus, these cemeteries will be among the first I will write about. Please stay tuned for future posts! Thanks.

Tombstone Tuesday ...

For this Tombstone Tuesday, I have decided to post a photograph of my ancestor's grave. This is the tombstone for Adam Oswalt, and since he was a veteran, his tombstone gives the name of the war he served in (which happened to be the Civil War) and the regiment as well. Adam is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Three Rivers, Saint Joseph County, Michigan. I realize Three Rivers is a city, but I decided to post this picture because Three Rivers is a small city and is located in a county that is primarily rural. (I will try to not post photographs of tombstones from urban areas, but every so often, I'll post a photograph from this cemetery when I won't have photographs from other cemeteries available for posting.) Enjoy!

Looking For A Cemetery in Michigan? Here's A Place To Look

If you happen to be looking for a cemetery in Michigan, and you do not know where it might be, here is a book that might help you: Michigan Cemetery Atlas (Lansing, Michigan, 1991). This book lists the names of cemeteries in Michigan, and gives a location for those cemeteries by county. This is one way a person might be able to determine where a cemetery is located, or if they do not know the name of the cemetery, looking at the map for the county might help a person narrow down the name of the cemetery he or she is looking for. I know that the Library of Michigan has at least one copy of this book in their genealogy section.

Another source one could use to locate the county of a cemetery is the Library of Michigan Michigan Cemetery Sources database on its website. Again, this is a website that will give a list of names of cemeteries in a particular location. It does not contain a map of where the cemeteries are located, and the burial records for the cemeteries are not online. This site, though, is a place to start, if you are looking for the names of cemeteries in a particular area.

Of course, if you are going to go visit one of the cemeteries in Michigan, I would obtain a map of the local county that you plan to visit, so that you are able to find the cemetery. In addition, paying a visit to the local library near the cemetery would be a good idea, especially if you are looking for a specific person buried in that cemetery. The local library might have a transcription of the tombstones in the cemetery, and finding out where a grave is located will save time when you visit the cemetery.