Genealogy in the South, or Why I Hang Out in Cemeteries

The American Civil War was a bloody, demoralizing, family-destroying event in United States history. After the war was over, in the Southern states there were rumors that those who fought would be prosecuted as war criminals and their families denied war pensions. How did a few choose to address these rumors?

Courthouses that contained census records were burned to the ground, that's how. Even copies of census records kept in Washington were destroyed. The only census records for the year 1890 that still exist nationwide are a fragment from Perry County Alabama and a few tiny bits and pieces from here and there. So what's an enterprising Southern genealogist to do for information? Go cemetery-hopping!

Cemetery headstones and old church records contain the only collated information available about deaths and burials, other than whatever someone's Aunt Harriet might have written down at the bedside of an ancient relic who was about to pass on.

Cemetery headstones frequently contain not only birth and death dates, but parental information too. And you might find that individual's parents' graves nearby, and their parents' too, and their children, and so on.

One sad note about the graves of many of our fallen Civil War veterans: their graves are often unmarked. For the same reason that today's genealogists look to gravestones for information, there were fears after the War that the same information would be used to identify and prosecute war criminals and their families. So, many graves simply went unmarked and remain so to this day.

One big issue with gravestone information is that occasionally, it is significantly wrong! I've got this problem in my family, and we're wrangling about who is going to fork over the money to solve it and get the name corrected. So, always make a note that your source for the information you collect is a gravestone from Serene Cemetery off Highway 261 near Eastville, or wherever you happen to be. Remember that a picture of the offending gravestone is worth a thousand notes too.

Some churches have burial records that are more than a hundred of years old. I have a set of transcribed minutes for a Presbyterian church that kept burial records since 1827. A phone call to the church office, or a letter to the pastor if the small church doesn't have an office, many times will open a jewelry box of information that will only require searching for the names and dates you need.

If you're really on your genteel Southern manners, you might be able to get a referral from the pastor to an elderly church member who may already have long lists of old genealogical information compiled by his or her ancestors that might be the motherlode of information you've been searching for.

Come November through March, nothing excites me more than spending a whole Saturday in a new cemetery. Some of them are way, way back in the woods and haven't been kept up for more than a century. Need long pants and bug spray for those forays because the ticks are as big as muskedines. Some cemeteries are so huge it takes many Saturdays to explore them completely. Some are just a few graves that were placed on the grounds of a homestead now long gone.

I'm on a quest to photograph every headstone for every ancestor of mine that I can find. That will take me the rest of my life, I reckon. I figure I'm related to nearly a third of the state of Alabama, if their families have been here more than a hundred years. I know of one Civil War veteran uncle buried in Chicago where he died of dysentery in a POW camp. I know the plot number and everything, and someday I'll get up there to photograph his headstone too.

My father always goes with me in my cemetery wanderings. And he always takes his best friend 'Roscoe.' Can't be too careful.

If you decide to make a trip, always carry a notebook and pencil, water, cell phone, and most importantly tell someone exactly where you're going and when you're coming back. Give them the address of the cemetery and the name of the church, if one is associated with it.

And be respectful of the dead. Don't take things that aren't yours, because all states have laws against removing things from graveyards under 'grave robbing' statutes. Don't take your metal detectors either, because they're covered under the same 'grave robbing' statues. Don't leave trash, don't have a picnic on the graves themselves–be decent, folks.

Mostly, be ready to be awed and filled with reverence. Cemeteries are peaceful, restful places and I love to be in them. Weird as this may sound, I would buy property next to a cemetery and build a house (if I had any money!) because I haven't found many cemeteries in central Alabama that don't contain graves of my ancestors. I feel near to the past when I'm in a cemetery. The past, history, is my love, and I love my ancestors. We've been in Alabama since 1796. This ground where my ancestors rest is truly my home.

Meniere's and Migraine Madness
Another blog written long before today! I write these things on the fly, as I find clear minutes. Sometimes I feel better at, say, 2:45AM for 25 minutes. I write like crazy until I give out. I pick up again next time I have a few clear minutes, and that's how I get these things written.

I've discovered that this cognitive dysfunction I'm suffering from has had a rather interesting effect on my brain. I can be creative, but not cogitative. I can write music or a story or a blog or draw or sing--but ask me to fill out a form, or read and understand instructions for something like the disability paperwork I'm struggling with right now--cannot do it.

I cannot get rid of this migraine. The pain just goes on and on. As long as I hold my head perfectly still and try not to think, the pounding lessens. But I do have to get up every now and then, and that's when trouble hits.

Meniere's ear pressure is still there in both ears. The tinnitus is still loud. I was trying a tinnitus masking technique of listening to ambient music through headphones and actually heard the hearing in my left ear gradually fluctuate downward until I could barely hear at all.

I'm going back to bed now. When I'm flat on my back, it doesn't matter how many dizzy spells I have, or how bad my head hurts. I pray, and God listens, and sometimes He says 'yes' to my prayers and sometimes He doesn't. But He always listens.