Kansas, Is There A Problem?

Alice and Kathryn, I'm on the trail. Too bad I can't just fly to Pratt right now.

This all started with a list of birth/death days for my deceased grandparents, aunts, and uncles, kind of an "honor our ancestors on their special days" project, which became a topic of interest for my oldest son and me as we noticed that family members' deaths sometimes happen around the same time. Siblings, parents and children, or sometimes a grandparent, parent, and child, will die years apart, but in the same month, same week, or one day apart. It's weird.

To make my list, I worked my way up the family tree and eventually, my Smiths in Kentucky entered the picture. I found that I had no death date for auntie Alice Smith Anderson - just a death year (unacceptable!). Having conducted some half-assed research in the past, I still had no clue what happened to her daughter, 1C3R Catherine/Katherine/Kathryn Anderson Thomas. I did find them tonight in the same cemetery in Pratt, Kansas, along with a death year for Kathryn, which is more than I previously knew.

Kansas seems to be quite tight-lipped about who did what in their state, so on Monday I will call the cemetery to see if they can tell me anything about these ladies. If I have any luck, I'll be able to order Alice and Kathryn's death certificates from VitalChek, maybe, since I'm just a lowly niece and possibly unworthy. Hopefully, since Kathryn died almost a hundred years ago and Alice about fifteen years later, Kansas will take pity on me and cough up their death records.

Why is Kansas being so weird about their dead? Hmmm.

Happily, I will add that this is the kind of project that puts me in INTENSE RESEARCH mode. I'm still learning to add more details in my information for Future Me to see, such as adding the names of cemeteries to my loved ones' burial info - like, why would I not do that in the first place? - or add the entire date to census records (looking on the record for the day and month, not just the year). This is just another project that creates these deep research opportunities, along with the chance to do some of this detailing. I love that my brain works like this. 

There Was An Opportunity

 ... to visit the Family History Library (except it's now the FamilySearch Library) in Salt Lake City today, so of course I milked it. 

After creating a list of my direct line ancestors, mostly to determine whom I had parents for and who needed more work, I observed that my most problematic "problem child" is Mr. Alexander Keethler of Brown County, Ohio. I'm sure he's lovely, except that he has proven to be quite elusive.

While Hubby decided to rove SLC and amuse himself with his camera, I went upstairs to the third floor and found the books, and had some luck with a book of "walked" cemeteries in Brown County. While Alex continued to elude me, I did find his son's wife's mother, Caroline, buried with her parents and sister there. (I know where Alexander died, but have no record of his burial yet.)

A fun time was had and I can't wait until I can go again. 

Just Found Some New Ancestors...

... more German emigrants. I'm starting to think I'm more German than anything else. Although I'm still pretty Scottish.

Christopher Heydrich and his two brothers came from Germany on the ship Robert and Alice (or Robert and Oliver, depending on the source) in 1738. Nif-teeeee.

In this e-book about the Hetrick family, Christopher's signature can be seen and a little more background is given about his family and the circumstances which may have brought him and his brothers to America.

This search started last week when Michelle and I were cemetery-geeking and we found some Hetricks buried in our cemetery. I looked them up in the census and in the Ancestry family trees - not the most reliable source, but a place to start - and sure enough, the Hetricks in the cemetery are related to me. Probably. I feel good about having just cleaned up their headstones (here's one picture).

Other German names in my family tree:
Arndt
Decker
Haizmann
Reed/Reid
Roller
Sager
Schneeweiss (who took on the Swedish name Kyn, which became Keen)
Steinhilber
Strohle
Strudlin
Thierer

All but Schneeweiss and Heydrick/Hetrick are on my dad's side. It's been fun to find that my mother is part German as well. Here we thought she was all U.K.

Have you ever considered how unique we all are? That if one name changed on your family tree, you'd be a completely different person? It's that exact combination of ancestors and DNA that makes you who you are. The only people you share that with are your siblings, and even they are made of a slightly different combination of those same genes. Without sounding too cheesy - it's mind-blowing to me, how very special we are, how no two people on this earth have ever been or ever will be exactly alike.

Happy Memorial Day

When I was a little girl, we had a tradition of traveling to Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington, to clean and decorate our family members' graves. Everyone's grown older and moved away, but every so often we still get together to fix up the graves. My grandmother says that her mother, Adina Keithler, used to spend a week picking flowers from her yard and making elaborate arrangements to place on the family graves on Memorial Day. I'd love to carry on that tradition.

Willamette National Cemetery, Portland, Oregon. We have several loved ones buried here. It's beautiful and I love visiting any other day but Memorial Day, when it's a zoo.

Our Gran. We all miss him dearly. (We miss everyone else too - but he died more recently and it's still pretty tender.)

Neenaw's parents, Poppy (Howard) and Grandma (Adina)

Aunt Rose and Uncle Kenneth - Aunt Rose is Adina's youngest sister. They're right across the cemetery driveway from each other.

Jennie Keithler, Howard's mother, at Park Hill Cemetery in Vancouver. Her husband Ignatius Keithler died long before she did and is buried in Montana. She was a plucky little widow for almost forty years before she passed away. Neenaw says she refused to live with any of her children - always wanted to keep her independence. I don't blame her.

John Lawrence Keithler, son of Howard and Adina, also at Park Hill. His headstone is always completely overgrown whenever we visit and is also the hardest to find (guilty voice: "Maybe if we visited more often, we'd know where his grave is...."). John was a young man, only 29 when he died, and the family bought two plots and a double headstone for him and his wife Corky. Corky probably always planned on being buried beside him, but being young herself, was married again and died in Wyoming. So we still have this plot and half a headstone... hmmmm. (Not that we're anxious to fill it or anything.)

Howard Ernest, son of Howard and Adina, buried in the children's section at Park Hill Cemetery. He died at age fourteen.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day. I hope you are able to visit some family graves today.

Dousing for the Dead

Yesterday at the cemetery, as we were spending quality time with a few headstones and wondering about the empty spaces between, I told my friend Michelle about this article, describing a process by which burial places are found by "witching." Makes you want to go out and try it, doesn't it? (Thanks to Heather for the link)

Here's a video... pretty weird!


On another topic: A cemetery caretaker in Texas would rather not have you show up and take photographs of headstones with your digital camera. Read more here.