Memorial Day Cemetery Graves

Memorial Day was initially a federal holiday to commemorate the dead soldiers after the Civil War.  It later developed into a day to remember deceased relatives. Memorial Day for me as a child symbolized the beginning of summer.   My family would have a cookout and invite friends over for a barbecue.  My deceased relative’s graves were hundreds of miles away.  I rarely visited a cemetery.     

As I became older, I attended more funerals--- immediate family members and close friends were dying.    This Memorial Day I will not be going to a cemetery.  I will be working.     I plan however to visit cemeteries to find ancestors' and friends graves.  I want to know that their remains have not been desecrated.  These people who were dear to me are not forgotten.  

Look at the Burr Oak Cemetery incident. 




My father was buried in a Chicago, Illinois cemetery not  Burr Oak Cemetery.  I have his plot number but his headstone is missing.   I will plan this year to investigate what can be done. If someone has had a similar problem and or solution let me know.

BillionGraves.com has a mobile telephone camera app that allows you to photograph a headstone, transcribe the information and locate the grave in the future.  I plan to use this app when I find locate my friend's and family tree graves.

The Jones Genealogist: To Genealogist Everywhere: We are the Chosen

Why Genealogy is important to me.... The Tree Gardner

THE STORY TELLERS

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors – to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.

To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.

We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one.

We have been called by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: tell our story. So we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me?

I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can’t let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation.

It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. So, as a scribe is called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.

That is why I do genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.

Written by Della M. Cummings Wright  Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson  Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, (in) 1943. Bob Dunn aka “The Storyteller” of Houston, TX., Author

Mississippi County Map

Mississippi County Map

What Is In A Name?

One of the reasons genealogy research is interesting to me is trying to find the history of my ancestors which helped shape me. When researching black African American genealogy, the search has many elements to consider.  The surname may be from a slave master at the Emancipation Proclamation, former slave master or an adopted name.  Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was a famous former slave.  He changed his name to Frederick Douglass. Araminta "Minty" Ross is known as Harriett Tubman.  Booker  T.  Washington took the surname Washington from his mother’s husband Washington Ferguson.    These famous former slaves could not verify with certainty the exact year of their birth or biological fathers.  I am however optimistic that my efforts to discover linage will be good.    We now have DNA testing and the Internet which can record, search and shared family history stories. 

My starting point I have made several assumptions concerning my ancestors that 1) predominately of African ancestry 2) they were slaves  3) their surname is the name of the former slave owner 4) the emancipated slaves lived in the same geographic area as their former masters 5) emancipated slaves with the same surname are related. 
None of these assumptions maybe true.

My research of African American Brumfield ancestors and related trees has focused predominately in Pike, Amite, Marion, Walthall, Lincoln counties in Mississippi and Washington Parish, Louisiana.   
In an attempt to trace the origin of the surnames in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana,   I initially referred to a detailed genealogy of the ancestors of Glenn Brumfield  http://brumfieg.tripod.com/ and the book  Source Records from Pike County, Mississippi 1798 - 1910  by Luke Ward Conerly.   www.lukewardconerly.com These sources describe the early family settlers with listed surnames I have researched. These sources mention the Caucasian families who migrated from North Carolina, South Carolina  and Virginia.   In the Luke Conerly's book, he mentions geneologies, church records, census, military records , individuals who own slaves and a few black people who lived in these communities.  Are there any other available sources?    Post let me know.   ------- Tree Gardener

http://brumfieg.tripod.com