Tuesday's Tip: Military Headstones

Where can you find help understanding the abbreviations on a military headstone?  For example, what does "Regt." mean?

Military Headstone

The National Cemetery Administration has made it easy. Its website (part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) includes a list of abbreviations commonly used on government-furnished headstones and markers. The abbreviations include branch of service, war service, awards, and rank. 

Find this helpful list at http://www.cem.va.gov/cem/hmm/abbreviations.asp. 

 

 

Tuesday's Tip: Gravestone Symbolism

Ever wonder about the artwork, symbols, or decorations on your ancestor's gravestone?  What do they mean? Check out our Facebook post today for some ideas.

Gravestone with Carvings

Tuesday's Tip: Connecticut's Hale Collection

Rural Cemetery

Have you heard the name "Hale" while doing Connecticut research and don't know what it means?

Named for Charles R. Hale, the Hale Collection was created through the federal W.P.A. between 1932 and 1935. It includes headstone transcriptions for approximately 2,400 Connecticut cemeteries. Since many headstones not have survived years of rough winter weather, the Hale can be helpful in determining where your early Connecticut ancestor was buried – even if the headstone is no longer standing.

Looking for a photo of a Connecticut headstone? If you are a member of the Godfrey library, check to see if one is available through the Ed Laput Cemetery Project.

Tuesday's Tip: How To Access Our Cemetery Collections

Rural Cemetery

The goal of the Godfrey's Ed Laput Cemetery Project is to update the Charles R. Hale cemetery collection that recorded vital information from the headstone inscriptions of approximately 2,400 Connecticut cemeteries circa 1932-1935.

The Laput Project differs from FindAGrave.com in that every stone is photographed; every Hale inscription is included; information from stones post-Hale are entered; and there are no unsourced data.

The Godfrey also has other cemetery records, including Connecticut burial and sexton records from 1847 to present.

How do you find our cemetery records? Watch the video below and see.

click on button to play video

Leave no Stone Unturned by Diane Reid

         Godfrey Memorial Library is an amazing place.  In the more than fifteen years I have been volunteering as a docent and researcher, I have met and been able to help genealogists from all across the United States, and in a few instances, those from other countries. Some people have lots of information about the ancestor they are researching, some have nothing more than a name, a general birth year, and, if we’re lucky, a town.  We are able to find information most of the time using the many resources available to us here at the Godfrey.   

Then there are the people that no one appears to be searching for.   They are the persons who died and are buried in cemeteries across the United States, most with no stone to mark their grave, buried in what used to be called “pauper’s graves”.  Most towns have lots for the burial of those without family or funds, and some churches have lots for that purpose also.

Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown has both.  A beautiful cemetery opened in 1850,  Indian Hill Cemetery is the final resting place for more than 9,000 souls.  There is a large city lot, and a lot owned by the local Episcopal Church.   These lots contain very few stones to mark the final resting places for those buried here.  I have been researching those buried in the church lots to identify them and document something about their lives.  I hope to see a marker erected on the lots listing the names of those who rest among strangers.

The resources at the Godfrey have been of tremendous help in discovering the resting places of those who would otherwise be lost to history.   The Ed Laput Cemetery Cemetery Project has recorded names and dates from 950 Connecticut cemeteries and 37 in other states, along with photos of the sites if available.  This collection is just part of Godfrey's online materials available to members.

In addition, Godfrey has copies of the records of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, and the vital records of Middletown and the Sexton Returns from 1892 to 1900. Add to this the Middletown City Directories, the Penny Press newspaper from 1884 to 1921, and the Indian Hill Cemetery burial records, and I have been able to locate information on close to fifty persons buried in the church lot since 1851.

As an example, the sixth and seventh burials in the church lot were the 800^th and 852^nd at Indian Hill.  They were of Elizabeth Martin and her son William Andrew Martin, who died six months apart in 1876. The Indian Hill Cemetery Internment Book says Elizabeth  was 35 years old when she died of pneumonia.  The Middletown Vital Records give her birthplace as Wilmington North Carolina and stated that she  was married to Henry John Martin, a stone worker.  The church records list two children, John Henry, b.2 Apr 1871, baptized the 12^th of that month, and William Andrew b. 15 Jul 1875, and baptized 15 Aug 1875.  William died in  Sep 20, 1876 six months following his mother’s passing and was buried with his mother in the same grave.   In 1880, John Henry was living in the Hartford Orphan Home.  Neither Henry John nor his son John Henry were located in the 1900 census.

This is just one example of the many resources we have available to help you discover information about your ancestors.  To learn more, come in or go to our website.

This Week on the Scholar

Thank you everyone for bearing with us while routine server maintenance delayed our regular uploads.  This week marks the last batch of books uploaded from our backlog!  In this final large batch of new books there is a nice variety of biographies, genealogies, church records, funeral records, and even a few military books.  Indexes for two new cemeteries and one volume of funeral home records were also added. 

We will continue to add new content to the Scholar, though not at quite the same volume as before.  Our goal is to focus on adding unique content from our collection that cannot be found anywhere else, such as the variety of handwritten records and portions of Fremont Rider's original collection.  If you know of something at the Godfrey you would like to see on the Scholar please let us know!

Biography
Mary Austen's Scrapbook*
Sketch of the Life and Work of Charles Barnard*
Memories of a Rear Admiral: S.R. Franklin*
Random Memories: Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow*

Cemeteries
Old Harwinton Cemetery, Harwinton, CT*
Indian River Cemetery, Clinton, CT*

Church Records from the Cromwell First Congregational Church, CT
Records of the Second Ecclesiastical Society 1821-1902
First Congregational Church Inc. Meetings 1929-1947
Accounts
Miscellaneous History from the State Library
Mr. Redfield's Letter
North Society of Middletown Ledger
North Society of Middletown Records
Pastoral Relations from 1830
Sermon of Rev. Huntington
Sabath School Records 1829-54
Subscription Lists
Sunday School Records 1905-10
Untitled Record Book

Funeral Records
Index to the Coughlin-Lastrina Funeral Home Records December 1914 to October 1918*
Roberts Funeral Home Burial Records from 1956 to 1959

Genealogies
Genealogy of Benjamin Cleveland*
The Johnson Family Genealogy*
Genealogy of the Libby Family in America*

Revolutionary War
Collections of the CT Historical Society Vol. 12: Lists and Returns of CT Men in the Revolution*


Civil War 
Memoirs of P.H. Sheridan, Vol. 2*
Sketches of the War, Vol. 3*

*Searchable

 Not a Scholar?  Visit our website to subscribe or call the library at (860) 346-4375 to join today.

Another Major Milestone Reached!

We did it!  We now have 1000 digitized books on Godfrey Scholar⁺!

Over the last year we've added:

• 293 Biographies

• 132 volumes of original Funeral Home Records from 1882 to 1980 including records from the Hallahan Funeral Home featured in the movie A Haunting in Connecticut

• 234 Genealogies

• 146 volumes pertaining to the Revolutionary, Civil and Spanish American Wars including regimental histories and biographies of officers and soldiers 

• 86 State and Local Histories for 11 states and New England

• 68 volumes of original Church Records in 9 different Connecticut towns, Indiana, NY and Italy from 1668 to 1908

• 20 published volumes of Vital Records for Connecticut and Massachusetts and 42 volumes of original records including a record book kept by a midwife from Melilli Italy of babies born in Middletown, an account book of deaths in Wallingford from 1827 to 1900, Wolcott CT vital records (1783-1849) found among land records and not included in Barbour's, and multiple volumes of transcriptions from church and vital records by Lillian Kruger Brooks of Haddam Neck and surrounding towns for her own research

• 13 volumes of New Jersey Archives Newspaper Extracts, 1704-1782

• 11 volumes of original Cemetery Records (sexton returns, gravestone inscriptions and burial returns) from 7 different Connecticut towns

Keep following us on Facebook and our blog "Genealogy from the Godfrey" for weekly updates on new Scholar content.  

This Week on the Scholar

We've added quite a variety of new works to the Scholar this week.  Genealogies, Biographies, State and Local Histories, Vital Records, Funeral and Cemetery Records, and even a new Directory: just about a little bit of everything!  Of particular note is a volume of internment records from Middletown Connecticut's Indian Hill Cemetery and 6 Volumes of the New Hampshire Genealogical Register.  Make sure to take a look when you get the chance!

Biographies
Memoir of Joseph Buckminster*
Memoir of William Burke*
James Fenimore Cooper: American Men of Letters*
John Fiske*
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin*
Memorial Addresses of William Pierce Frye*
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of R.C. Graffenreid*

Cemetery Records
Middletown, CT: Indian Hill Register of Internments

Church Records
Portland, CT: Minnesskrift utgifurn af Su. Luth. Zionsforsamlingen
 
Directories 
The Boston Directory: The City Record*

Funeral Home Records
Doolittle Funeral Home Burial Returns: Volume 66: July 1972 to June 1974

Genealogies
The Fields of Sowerby*
Genealogy and Descendants of Luke Fish*
Follet-Dewey, Fassett-Safford, Hopkins-Robinson-Fay Genealogy and History*
The New Hampshire Genealogical Record Volumes 1-6*
Chester Smith and Family*

State and Local Histories
Annals of Kansas*
Kansas City 1888-89*
Kansas the Interior and Exterior Life*
Kansas: The Prelude to the War for the Union*
The Massachusetts Magazine Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10*

Vital Records
A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston: Births, Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths 1630-1699*
A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston: Births 1700-1800*
A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston: Direct Tax of 1798*
Registry Department of the City of Boston Records Relating to Births, Marriages, and Deaths of Dorchester 1826-49*


Not a Scholar?  Visit our website to subscribe or call the library at (860) 346-4375 to join today.

*Searchable

This Week in the Scholar

This week we really dug into our backlog of scanned books to bring a huge number of biographies as well as some genealogies to the Scholar!  You'll notice that most of the books we've added focus on people whose last names start with an A: this is because we've started from the beginning of our stored books and will be continuing down the list in roughly alphabetical order.  Expect to see more like these in the weeks to come!

Biographies
Charles Francis Adams, An Autobiography*
American Statesmen: John Adams*
American Statesmen: John Quincey Adams*
American Statesmen: Samuel Adams*
Letters and Recollections of Alexander Agassiz*
Elizabeth Cary Agassiz: A Biography*
Life and Correspondence of Louis Agassiz Vol. 1*
Life and Correspondence of Louis Agassiz Vol. 2*
Louisa May Alcott Her Life, Letters, and Journals*
Crowding Memories by Thomas Bailey Aldrich*
The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D.*
Forty Years Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander Vol. 1*
Forty Years Familiar Letters of James W. Alexander Vol. 2*
Memoir of Colonel John Allan*
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes*
Biography of Deacon James Allen*
Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Thomas Allen*
Memoirs of Governor Andrew*
One Girls Influence: A Memorial of Louise Stockton Andrews*
Israel Angell Colonel of the 2nd RI Regiment*
Memoirs of Francis Atwater*
Presidents and Pies: Life in Washington 1897-1919*

Cemeteries
The Carper-Miller Cemetery Inscriptions Collection: Glastonbury, CT*

Funeral Records
Doolittle Funeral Home Burial Returns: Volume 61: May 1963 to Feb. 1965

Genealogies
History of the Thomas Adams and Thomas Hastings Families*
Phineas Allens Descendants*
A Supplement to the Allen Family*
Centennial Celebration of the Annin Family at the Old Stone House*
Genealogy of some Descendants of John Coollidge*
American Ancestry, Volume 3: Embracing Lineages from the Whole of the United States 1888*
American Ancestry, Volume 12: Embracing Lineages from the Whole of the United States 1899*

State and Local Histories
University of Michigan General Catalog of Officers and Students*

Not a Scholar?  Visit our website to subscribe today or call the library at (860) 346-4375. 

*Searchable

An Inside Look at the Ed Laput Cemetery Project

One of the Godfrey's most valuable resources is the data collected by board member Ed Laput and his small army of volunteers in Ed's quest to update and improve the Hale Cemetery Inscription Collection.  The Ed Laput Cemetery Project, as it is called, currently contains data from over 700 Connecticut cemeteries, with more being added all the time.  Aside from Ed himself, the person best able to give a real insider's look at the project is Ed's right hand man, Gene Gumbs.

"When I signed on to join Ed Laput, former Godfrey Memorial Library Board Member, and his merry volunteer band of brothers and sisters in his effort to catalogue and photograph every cemetery in the State of Connecticut, little did I know that the project was about to become an obsession and a quest to find out more about some of the names I found on the stones. It’s a daunting task Ed has undertaken – there are more than 2300 cemeteries in Connecticut – but, if you’re a student of history and genealogy like I am, it’s also a fascinating and exciting look into the past. It’s a journey of mysteries and puzzles – some of which I find myself taking time to look into a little more.

A case in point…. Buried in Brewster Cemetery in Preston is Jonathan Brewster, son of William Brewster who came to America in 1621 on the Mayflower. In fact, Jonathan was supposed to be on the Mayflower but stayed in Holland with his sick wife who later died. He joined his father in Plymouth a few months later, making the trip west on the ship Fortune. He married again while in Massachusetts came to Connecticut in 1649, settling in New London where he died in 1659.

Another interesting inscription sent me scouring the Internet for answers. On the base of an obelisk in Colonel Ledyard Cemetery in Groton is this inscription: “The body of Capt. John Seeley Æ42 rests here who with his wife Cordelia Æ36 & son Mighil Æ14, drowned Oct. 23, 1856.”  After my initial thoughts of sadness for the tragic end for this family I started wondering what actually happened.  Could it have been an accident on the Thames River? Perhaps parents trying to rescue a drowning son in a swimming mishap. Did it happen in the State?  After a little digging I discovered it happened off Turks Island in a shipwreck. Captain Seeley was trading salt between New England and the islands when his ship went down in the shoals off the island.

We have also run into times where headstones and graves show up in places they’re not supposed to be. Jared Covey’s headstone rests in the basement of the library in Burlington, CT. The only problem is that Jared is supposed to be buried in the Seventh Day Baptist Cemetery in town. Covey, who died in 1804, actually helped build the Seventh Day Meeting House with his sons. He actually deeded the land for the cemetery from his private property.  So the question remains – is he actually buried where the library now stands? Or was his headstone removed from the Seventh Day Cemetery to the library?

Ed and I stumbled on another stumper when we were in Montville. We were in a remote spot in the woods on top of a hill taking pictures of what remained of the Spicer Cemetery. When Charles Hale surveyed the cemetery in the early 1930’s he noted just four burials – all named Spicer – dating from 1839-1887. The only problem is that we found the headstone of Anna Bolles lying on the ground. How did that headstone get there? Is she actually buried there or did some prankster remove her headstone from elsewhere and transport it up a 500-foot hill to a stonewall-enclosed family cemetery? Could Hale have just missed her stone 80 years ago?

Unfortunately, I have yet to unravel the mystery. There was indeed an Anna Bolles who died in 1830 listed in local obituaries in the Montville area but Hale did not register an Anna Bolles in any of the nearly 50 cemeteries in the town.

To date, the Ed Laput Cemetery project has cataloged and photographed more than 730 cemeteries. There are more than 160,000 photos and 230,000 names in the database! The Godfrey Scholar⁺ gives anyone complete access to the collection, as well as dozens of other genealogical databases, and it is growing daily. It is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to trace their family roots.

If you’d like to get involved with the Laput Cemetery Project we need people who can type information into spreadsheets, rename digital photos, and help us find the abandoned and remote burial grounds throughout the state of Connecticut. If you love history and mystery this is the volunteer project for you!"- Gene Gumbs, Godfrey Volunteer

If you want to help with this incredible endeavor call 860-346-4375  

We'd be happy to have you!  

Upcoming Event: Using Cemetery Records to Help Your Genealogy Research

Cemetery records can be a valuable resource for building your family tree.

gravestone

This gravestone, for example, includes not only the ancestor's information, but also whom she married.

So how do you locate gravestones, plot records, and other cemetery information?

Join us on June 4 at 9:30 a.m. for a Genealogy Club meeting on cemetery records. We'll discuss resources that can help you determine where your ancestor was buried and give hints about what other information, besides their gravestone, may exist.

Gene Gumbs, head of the Ed Laput CT Cemetery Project, will also speak about that project and how it can help your research.

Genealogy Club is free for Godfrey Premium Members or $10 per session for Guest Members.