Today's blog is a special 2 for 1. You'll understand in a second so keep reading.
First, spooky season is almost upon us and somehow, in my travels last summer, I missed an article in my local newspaper -
Radar finds more than 120 coffins buried beneath Tampa apartment complex. I found the article by subscribing to a weekly list service through
Geneanet. I believe the organization is headquartered in France so it's interesting to discover a regional article (for me) in their newsletter.
Here's why I was creeped out - my first career was as a school counselor and one of the sites I was assigned had a student population that encompassed the Tampa apartment complex named in the article. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many home visits I made to that location over the years. Although I never felt scared while visiting there, a colleague who accompanied me once made a comment about feeling uncomfortable and said every time she had to go there she dreaded it like she did visiting a cemetery.
Personally, there is another complex I had to visit that I absolutely hated to visit. Every time I used the south stairwell I got a feeling of dread and felt cold and clammy. I mentioned this to a gentleman colleague who had accompanied me on one visit and asked him why he didn't use that stairwell. He claimed it was due to his bad knees and said he preferred the others because they had a more secure handrail. Turns out, his story wasn't the truth. He told a friend what I had said who later informed me that there had been a murder on those stairs Hmmm. That apartment complex was located across from an older school that had a basement. If you live in Florida you know that's rare - because the water table is not far down there aren't true basements in Florida. I grew up with basements so they don't bother me but every time I was alone in that basement hallway I got the eebie jeebies - that hair standing up on the back of your head feeling. I also felt like someone was behind me but no one ever was. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a graveyard under those two sites.
If you have spent any time with genealogy you most likely have a list of ancestors that you can't find their burial location. This story is a classic example of why you need to search through old newspapers of the town where they resided to see if you can find references to burial sites that no longer exist. Old maps and regional books are another wonderful source to locate cemeteries that have long disappeared.
I suspect most of those buried did not have gravestones. Death has always been expensive and money may not have been available for a headstone. In other locations, it may have not been a custom to have one. My husband's Dutch 4 x's great grandfather preferred a small rough stone carved with his initials. The stone is long gone but thankfully, the record remained that it once was there next to his wife who had a traditional marker. A modern trend is to be interred in "green" cemeteries where no stones are used. I point this out as future genealogists are going to run into the same problem we do today.
If you think after reading the article that this practice only happened in the south think again. Later in the week I was reading the New England Historic Genealogical Society's weekly newsletter which linked to the story
Skeletons found at New Haven site tells immigrants story. The poor of every race, creed and national origin are marginalized even after death. I found this second article fascinating in regards to the painstaking research that was conducted after the DNA results were obtained to try to identify those buried.
This gets me to an unrelated but still important topic which I've deemed second in my 2-4-1 special today. Signing up for free genealogy/history related newsletters can be a wonderful resource for your research. I subscribe to several.
If you aren't familiar with Geneanet, from their website, they were "Launched in 1996 by genealogy enthusiasts. Geneanet is a community of more than 3 million members who share their genealogical information for free: more than 6 billion individuals in the family trees, some digitized archival records, some family pictures, some indexes, all available through a powerful search engine, and a blog." And they didn't mention the weekly newsletter that I really enjoy. They also have a paid premium site that I haven't experienced.
As I noted, the second article was found through reading the weekly newsletter from the .
New England Historic Genealogical Society I also subscribe to
FamilySearch.org's monthly update,
RootsMagic,
Legacy Family Tree,
Find My Past, Ohio History Connection and
Genealogy News.
You don't have to feel overwhelmed to read every article. I let them sit in my email inbox and once a week, open and read those of interest to me. I have gained historical background to an area I was researching, hints on where to look for records and knowledge of research techniques that have proved helpful. Most beneficial - all of this information was free! Check these out and if you have a favorite let me know.
