Thursday, August 25, 2011

Vacation day 1

I will keep this short because I'm on my iPhone. Hopefully no emberrasing autocorrects. Lol. So haven't even been in the state 24 hours and I've been to two cemeteries. Approximately 300 photos were taken. Also good sunset cemetery photos. Very nice.

At Jacobs church cemetery a kitten followed us literally all around. My photos have her everywhere including on top of headstones. Adorable. Did semi crime scene photos. I'm satisfied. Started taking photos of tombstones that I don't even know for sure if I'm related to. At end found out my pap knows ppl that take care of cemetery. After phone calls discovered they only have list of ppl there not locations.

Next was pine hill. Got some kase and pitners etc. Pap knew someone that took care of that one too. Better luck. Had a book of everyone, plot locations, and then what was cause of death. THEN. There was a map. I have brilliant pictures of the map. Over 6ft long. Don't worry I took close ups. My crime scene photos again.

Ps computer wifi actin up hence iPhone use.

Pap let me take pix of the sword too. Ok now I'm not even able to read what I'm. Typing. Forgive me. Lol. Ok brain fart on the rest of genealogy events. Later peeps.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Genealogical Vacation!


In case you haven't noticed, I tend to post to procrastinate. What better time to procrastinate than during the week when you you go on vacation and your trip is bumped up leaving you less time to clean and pack etc. I was supposed to leave Friday morning 6am.... unfortunately Tropical Storm Irene had other plans. So my mom and I are going to try and leave Thursday morning.

Moving right along... my trip is to Pennsylvania and, whilst enjoying good food, amusement parks, and family, I want to do at least an itty bitty tiny bit of research. Ok mostly cemetery photography. All of these cemeteries are in Northumberland County. Here is a list of the ones I plan/ hope to visit:

Shamokin Cemetery
Saint Stanislaus Cemetery
Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery
Pine Hill Cemetery
All Saints Cemetery
Jacob's Church Cemetery

Two extras are Rush Presbyterian/ Baptist Cemetery and the Lantz Emmanuel Cemetery.

Now, time to do a public service. This is for anyone looking for any of the sixty some people buried at the Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery. If you've googled it, like me, you will find... nothing. at all. except maybe this blog post and findagrave.com which does not help. Fear not! For I have discovered where it is!

After endless google results coming up empty, I got the bright idea... Hey! Why not check ancestry.com's message boards! It seemed so obvious. So here it is.

Presbyterian Chapel Cemetery is located 2.5 miles outside of Elysburg, Pa. It is off of Snydertown Rd. Traveling down the road you pass an industrial park on the left, keep going. There will be a bible church and semi modern home next to it with a driveway and grove of trees between. The cemetery is apparently in that grove. Lambert Pitner, his wife Elida Farley, and their daughter Nancy Pitner Persing are buried in that cemetery. Not sure who else is, but thats all listed on findagrave.com

When I return I will have more blog posts with the cemeteries and pictures of people buried there. Now I'm not just going to take one picture of the sign and then the headstones. No no, that's not how I work. I'm going to do this as if it were... a crime scene. Hey, I have no job offerings so I have to put my degree to use some how. Crime scene photography includes overall photos, or 360 degree shots, as well as progressive shots from far away, to middle ground, and finally close ups. That way if anyone reading would like to visit those cemeteries they can have specifics instead of just wandering blindly. Eventually the photos will go on to findagrave.com but this is quicker for now.

This will probably be my last post until after vacation (unless I find something really REALLY exciting and just cannot help myself. Note, any such post will be very short as I am still debating taking my laptop with me and will only have iphone and nook. le gasp!)

(Side note: is genealogical even a word? Or am I just making stuff up? No red spell check line so I assume I'm ok.)

Monday, August 8, 2011

Eureka! I found it I found it!

My title doesn't sound enthusiastic enough. When I finally found a missing piece of the puzzle I actually started jumping up and down. Yes folks, that is what my life has come to. Excitement over dead people. But since most of you reading my blog are probably interested in genealogy too you can understand.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in an earlier post or not but there is a Civil War sword in my family. I first found out about it when I was in 6th grade learning about the Civil War and thought it was "soooo cool" to have a sword in the family. And it is. Very cool.

I've been doing this genealogy thing for a while now. Really focusing on it since 2009. My grandfather told me he got the sword from his grandfather. Silly me I assumed it would be his paternal grandfather. My brain assumed since my grandfather's last name is Persing that it would have been a Persing that owned the sword. Whoops. Anyway, I did find Civil War veterans in that branch of the family. (This was almost a year ago) I was very excited about finding Ilif Persing and when I told my grandpa... surprise! He got the sword from his other grandfather. Marion Hauck. So it was back to the drawing board. Then I found some Hauck's in the civil war.

Sometime between then and now my mom took a trip to Pennsylvania and I asked her to take some pictures of the sword among other things. Using the pictures (and comparing with others online), I was able to determine that the sword was from the Union Cavalry. I assumed Union before since, hey, Pennsylvania. Anyway it is a US model 1860 Cavalry Saber. Company (I think?) Mansfield and Lamb Forestdale RI inspected by CEW. The year on the sword is 1864.

Back to Hauck. I looked to see if Henry Hauck (1841-1898) could have owned it. Well, he wasn't in the Cavalry. And none of his siblings were either. So Marion didn't get the sword from the Hauck side. Then the other day I was thinking... I didn't look at Marion's mother's side of the family.

Marion Hauck's maternal gandfather was Uriah Swank (1841-1902). Hellooo goldmine. He was listed as a private in the 7th Cavalry Regiment Pennsylvania. He enlisted 27 Feb 1864 and was mustered out 23 Aug 1865

To make this even better, I was recently making a list of all the cemeteries I want to visit when I go to Pa in a few weeks (you might be a genealogy addict if....) and Uriah was one of the last ones I found before deciding to look for the sword's owner again.

And now for some pictures of the sword :)