Category: Tombstone Tuesday

Tombstone Tuesday: Thorwards

Posted on by Kathleen

Today I’m choosing to highlight the first known Thorward and his wife. I know that George Thorward immigrated to America very early in his life. There is a family legend that his brother also came over, but that they never spoke. I’ve never found any evidence of another Thorward, but that doesn’t mean one or both of the boys didn’t change their name.

George and Josephine Doremus

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging theme from GeneaBloggers.  To participate in Tombstone Tuesday simply create a post which includes an image of a gravestone of one or more ancestors and it may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.

Tombstone Tuesday: Kindess

Posted on by Kathleen

This Tombstone Tuesday I’m going to share a tombstone picture and a story of kindness.

As I often complain about, I live in Maryland while many of my roots are in other states. Due to limited means, I can’t really travel. So getting to cemeteries where my relatives actually are is very difficult. That’s why I love the Find a Grave website so much. They have Photo Volunteers on there. I am now one of them, but I haven’t been fast enough to fulfill a request yet! Anyway, I sent out a photo request for some tombstones that I had been to before in my Dad’s hometown, but didn’t have a camera at the time. What I got in return for one photo request was an amazing experience.

I didn’t know at the time how abundant our family was in that cemetery. I was just looking to get my Dad’s grandparents. I knew it would be awhile before I’d see New Jersey again. (I was right by the way. This was in December of 2007 and I still haven’t been there.) So I filled out the Request a Photo form, and I waited. It wasn’t very long before someone “claimed” my request. The hardest part of anything to me is the waiting. Whether it be for records by mail, photo requests, or in the line at Wal-Mart. I hate waiting. It was such a surprise when my request was filled so quickly. The request was filled by John. We actually emailed back and forth for a bit before he could get out to the cemetery. He had run by really quick to check the lay of the land but didn’t have his camera. He went to the office and got all the information from the stones for me to tide me over. It was such a kind gesture. He even saw that William L Moore was buried in a Thorward plot and when he caught sight of yet another Thorward plot, he noted down the names to check later. That’s when he found moore-mays.org and saw that they were all indeed my family.

Then the pictures started coming in…

William and Llewellyn Moore (My Great-Grandparents)

Jennie Love (Llewellyn’s mother)

Lewis Thorward (Llewellyn’s father)

He took pictures of everything in William’s plot.

Then when he’d done that he took pictures of all the other names he’d found on my website. I can’t even picture them all here. They include Thorward, Lindsley, and Bush family plots. To this day I still remember John and how nice he was to take these pictures for me. Even though we weren’t related he’d found a great sense of history through my family ties to Caldwell, New Jersey. Even getting excited to see the old building the Meat Market was housed in. In his own words, “I’ve driven past this building a hundred times. Never really noticed it until last week.” I don’t know if John still visits this site, but I hope he knows how much I appreciated all the help he gave me.

This is why I love genealogy and the people who make it possible.

Tombstone Tuesday: Unknown West grave

Posted on by Kathleen

When I was lost in Kentucky many moons ago, I found this gravesite. At first I was excited because I was just going to Johnsville Cemetery for my Taylor relatives. Little did I know I had really opened up a waterfall of relatives. I know better now. Any cemetery in Bracken County, Kentucky is littered with my kin.

This however, isn’t one of them. Let me give you a quick look at my line leading up to the West line.

Me > Mom > Grandma Taylor > Lula Applegate > Elizabeth Susan West > Isaiah West and Zeroah Rachael Black?

Why do I put the question mark at the end of Zeroah’s name. Well, that’s because her name is cause for debate among the few that are actually researching this line. I haven’t communicated with any of them, because quite frankly I don’t think they are part of my line. I’ll probably reach out more once I have all my ducks in a row so to speak. I’m pretty confident about this line though, because I researched it myself, it didn’t come from my copy of the family tree. I have the death records of everyone except for Elizabeth’s parents. In all of the children’s death records it shows their mother listed as a weird Z name and the surname Black. So that’s why I have that in my family file. A quick search on Ancestry will bring up a half dozen trees with Isaiah West married to Zerelda Jane McClanahan. They say this because there is a Kentucky Marriage Record on file for the two.

Needless to say that’s enough for some. I get that Zerelda or any Z name is uncommon so this is probably as close as you can get. This record is one of the only (if not the only) marriage records for a West in the database. I’m still hesitant though. My couple started having children in 1866 that I know of. I don’t know if there were any infant deaths yet. I also have their marriage as being estimated for 1862. Which makes sense to me. For their ages and the children start time. The marriage record however, lists the marriage date as May 2, 1852. That’s 10 years off  my target date. Is it still possible, yeah it is but I don’t think so. I’m going to err on the side of caution on this one.

Where does this tombstone come in then you ask? Well when I found this tombstone on that ill fated trip, I assumed at the time that it was my couple. Why I don’t know, I just did. The delight wore off once I uploaded my pictures and started attaching the pictures to my file. This was definitely not my couple. In the years leading up to this post though, I’ve run across this couple in census records. I’m pretty sure all these yahoos I mentioned will end up in my tree. It’s another case of the William Moores and William Mayses for me. Eventually I’ll prove they were cousins or something. It’s just the way my research becomes full circle. It’s why I never deleted this picture. I just have it sitting in my Tombstone folder marked as Unknown West.

Maybe later today I will research the West family again, now that I’ve typed this up I find I want to get my ducks in a row when it comes to this family. Hm.. 🙂

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging theme I got from GeneaBloggers. To participate in Tombstone Tuesday simply create a post which includes an image of a gravestone of one or more ancestors and it may also include a brief description of the image or the ancestor.