National Volunteer Week-Thanks Find a Grave Volunteers!

   In a post from Jen Baldwin at Ancestral Breezes  I learned that it was National Volunteer Week. Jen suggested that we remember to thank those that have helped us on our genealogy journey.

 I want to thank all the many who volunteer at Find A Grave.  For those who may not be familiar with the site, Findagrave.com is a virtual cemetery where volunteers collect and add information from cemeteries from around the world.
 It is a free site and easy to search.

 In the last few months I have been the recipient of  some of the fine work that these volunteers do.

 I was able to find out where my Third Great Grandparents, William A. and Matilda Martin were buried from a volunteer who photographed and made memorial pages for those buried in Bethesda Presbyterian Cemetery, Statesville, Iredell County, NC.
  All I had was a clue that they may have been buried in Statesville, NC.
 A search on Find A Grave led me right to them.
 Now I not only have where my Marin's are buried but where several other of the family members are buried  as well, including their daughter, my Great Great Grandmother Ellen Caroline Martin Early.
 The only information I had on Ellen Caroline Martin Early was that " it was thought that burial would take place in Statesville".
From the burials recorded on Find A Grave from this cemetery I learned that my Great Grandfather, Jubal Ransom Early, had been married before he married my Great Grandmother, Emma Ruth Baker, and had at least one child from that marriage.

Find A Grave Memorial
William A. Martin
1813-1887
Bethesda Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Statesville, Iredell, NC

 The Memorial pages for this family and Memorials for other family lines I have found on this great website were graciously transferred over to me by those that had been maintaining them.
 I have made Memorial Pages for my family members who did not have one. In doing so I have come across wonderful photo volunteers.
 I now have pictures of many headstones that I did not have before.

One volunteer even was brave enough to patiently explain the importance of photographing headstones to a family who owned property where some of my family are buried. I have heard others have tried to get onto the private property that the Dargan Family Cemetery is on.Several have been told they could not have entrance in order to take pictures of the remaining headstones. I don't know what this particular volunteer did or what changed, but he was able to get the owners to let him gain access to the small cemetery. The photo's are now added to the Memorials on Find A Grave!

William Vaughn 1764-1857
Dargan Family Cemetery, Sumter, SC
Picture Courtesy Michael Dillingham,  FAG

 I have many similar stories of great volunteers who have helped me on Find A Grave.  From traveling many miles, taking pictures, transferring Memorials, photographing and making Memorials for whole cemeteries, to checking the cemetery office for me for available records, these are incredible people who are a true help to those of us who can't always travel to where our ancestors are buried.

  Now I want to pay if forward. I have signed up on Find A Grave to be a volunteer photographer for the cemeteries in my community.

 Thanks so much Find A Grave Volunteers and thanks Jen for making me aware of National Volunteer Month!


© Cheri Hudson Passey

Celebrating Women's History: And The Wall Came-A-Tumblin' Down!

The Accidental Genealogist suggests this topic for Day 20 :
 Is there a female ancestor who is your brick wall? Why? List possible sources for finding more information.

   What had started to become a brick wall for me recently came-a-tumblin' down!
 For years I was looking for anything I could find about my great great grandmother Ellen Caroline Martin Early (1850-1926). I had her Obituary that told me that she died in Columbia, SC, but it said that "it was thought that she would be buried in Statesville, NC".  No information was given about her parents or her maiden name.

 Ellen's Death Certificate was no help. Other than confirming that she was buried in Statesville, NC, it had no information on her family or what cemetery. I discovered Ellen's maiden name, Martin, when I found the Death Certificate for her son, my great grandfather, Jubal Ransom Early (1888-1964).

   Several census records in Iredell County, NC showed an E.C , Ellen C, or other variations of her name, as a child, living in the household of a William and Matilda Martin. 
 This looked pretty promising but I had no actual proof as to whether or not this was the right family. 
Then, I got an email about a possible record match for a Family Tree that I had placed online. The link took me to Find A Grave where I was thrilled to find a memorial for
Ellen Caroline Martin Early!

Find a Grave Memorial Page
Ellen Caroline Martin Early
Bethesda Presbyterian Church Cemetery
Statesville, Iredell, NC

    
Ellen is buried in Bethesda Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Statesville, NC, and her parents were- William A. Martin (1813-1887) and Matilda C. Martin (1812-1876)! 
  The family in the Census Records I had found were indeed hers.
 There is no stone marking Ellen's grave. The information on the Memorial was found in the Church Records of Bethesda Presbyterian Church. I am in the process of trying to locate those records to see what else I may be able to find.
 I added her death certificate and obituary to the memorial and, as you can see at the bottom of the page, the original creator was kind enough to transfer this memorial and others in the Martin family to me. He is not related so I am very grateful that he took the time to add the information from this cemetery to Find A Grave.
 From Ellen's memorial page I was able to locate a memorial for her mother,
Matilda C. Martin.

Find A Grave Memorial Page
Matilda C. Martin
Bethesda Presbyterian Church Cemetery
Statesville, Iredell, NC

  I love what is engraved on Matilda's headstone: "Her last words to her husband and children and friends were "Meet me in Heaven with Jesus"

 Also buried in the same cemetery with memorial pages are Ellen's father, William A. Martin, two brothers, and other members of the Martin family. There are also pages for Ellen's in-laws that provided several pieces of the puzzle of the Early family as well.

Thanks to the help of volunteers and record matching, I was able to remove the bricks from the wall that was starting to form.

Now to find information on William and Matilda and move on up the tree!

Thanks for stopping by!
Helping you climb your family tree,

Celebrating Women's History Month-My Favorite Female Ancestor-At Least For Today!

It's Women's History Month and Lisa Alzo is helping us once again with these fantastic blogging prompts for the month of March. Check out her web site for all the details!

Back For A Fourth Year: Fearless Females:31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women's History Month

Today the prompt from Lisa is:

Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.

  My favorite woman ancestor tends to be which ever one I am researching at the time.
I have been doing a lot of work on Find A Grave the last couple of weeks either adding memorials for my people or asking kindly for those already made to be transferred to me  (May I say that so far the folks who I have had contact with have been fabulous and are more than willing to transfer memorials to me.)
 Yesterday I received this picture from a volunteer who had traveled quite a distance from his home to fulfill picture requests at St. John's Methodist Cemetery in Lee County, SC.
 

Martha Dorrity Headstone
St. John's Methodist Church Cemetery
Lee County, SC
Find A Grave Memorial Picture
© Michael Dillingham
2/24/2013

          Martha  Dorrity was my Great Great Great Grandmother. She was born on June 13,1820 and .died April 14, 1905. She married William J. Dorrity and was the mother of at least 12 children.  From what I have been able to find out about her, she lived all of her life in the Springhill area of Sumter County, SC. Springhill became part of Lee County, SC after her death.
 
Notice the spelling of her last name. The stone days Dorraty. I have also found the family under the name Dorrity, Dority, Daugherty, and Daughrity as my Grandmother spelled it. Most consistent at this time period was Dorrity. Another interesting find was that the date of her death was recorded differently in a  book called  The Cemetery Surveys of Old Sumter County, South Carolina  Volume III, Lee County, SC. In it on page 37, under the St. John's Methodist Church section, her birth is recorded as June 19, 1820. Her stone actually says June 13, 1820.  Another in many examples I have of making sure to check originals.


  Martha's maiden name was most likely Mathis. I have death certificates from her children naming her as Martha Mathis, although one says Martha Stafford. She is buried in the Mathis plot of the cemetery.
 Martha lived her life on a rented farm where she is recorded  in several censuses as "Keeping House". There are several Mathis families recorded before and after the Dorrity family on these censuses.
 The 1880 Agricultural Census of Sumter County shows that the property was 22 acres with an orchard of peach and apples trees. They had only 1 ox. but many chickens that produced over 1,000 eggs that year.
 Some of their other crops were Cow Peas, Indian Corn and Sweet Potatoes.

  Martha lived through the hardship of the Civil War and sent not only her husband off to war, but her three sons as well.  All returned to live and work in rural Sumter County.

William J. Dorrity, Martha's husband, died sometime before 1897. He is listed in the 1880 census as being bed ridden with consumption.  By 1897, according to newspaper listings, Martha was receiving a widow's pension for her husband's service in the Civil War.  I have not been able to locate his actual death date or place of burial.

   By the 1900 Census, Martha was 83 and listed as the widowed head of household. She was living with her 55 year old single daughter Mary. Since they were listed as having no occupation I would like to believe that they were being cared for by her sons and members of the Mathis family who lived by.
  My next step will be to continue searching for information on Martha's many daughters. I have been able to find out who three of them married and have been able to trace their descendants.. Some I have been in contact with. There are several more daughters and families to find.
 I also will be contacting the church in whose cemetery she was buried  to see if they have any information on the family.
 A trip to the SC Archives in Columbia is on my list too! They have some Civil War Pension Records on line, but not Martha Dorrity's. I will need to look through their microfilmed records to see if there is a record for her there.

 So for today and several more, Martha Dorrity is my favorite female ancestor! Thanks Lisa Alzo for providing this great series of blogging prompts.