INTERMENT RIGHTS for Ancestor’s burial plots ~ How to gain ownership

Aid Cemetery sign, Lawrence Co., Ohio (photo taken by me)

Me at Washington Cemetery in Keene, New Hampshire (photo taken by my husband)

Mt. Olivet Cemetery sign, Detroit, Michigan (photo taken by me)

The subject of interment rights came to me quite by accident.  One of my paternal cousins wanted to place a headstone on her grandmother’s burial site.  Her grandmother is buried with my paternal grandparents and other family members.
 
However, she was told by cemetery staff that she had to get permission from the owner of the plot.  Trouble was, the owners were all deceased.  The staff member told her that if there was a living heir/descendant to the owner, then a notarized affidavit could be filled out and ownership then transfers to the descendant.

Guess who that descendant was?  Yup, me.
 
My cousin obtained the paperwork. I completed it, had it notarized and then returned it to cemetery staff.  Once this was done I, of course, gave my cousin permission to place the headstone for her grandmother.

Prior to this, I had never thought of doing anything like this.   
Have you heard of this procedure or done it yourself?

Here is the form I filled out (with names changed to protect living descenants).



I paid $10 to have the form notarized.  I am now the documented owner of this plot in Grand Lawn Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan.

WHY WOULD THIS BE IMPORTANT?

• Should anyone want to make changes to any of the gravesites, they would have to get my permission.
• If the cemetery or the City of Detroit or anyone else should decide to use this land for something else, they would, hopefully, notify the owner of record.
• When I make requests to have headstones raised (as I often do), they may be more likely to pay attention to me if I own the plot.
• And the last reason….because it makes me feel good to know that my grandparents and other ancestors are in my care.

I am currently in the process of completing another Affidavit of Heirs for my maternal grandparents burial location at another cemetery in Detroit.  Last time I visited their gravesites, their headstones had sunk so far I could barely see them.  I asked that they be raised and a year later, they had not been. Maybe as the owner they will process my request in a more timely manner.

I called the specific cemetery and they emailed the form to me right away.  Last time I did not keep a blank copy of the form.  This time I have scanned and saved it, as I see that it’s the same form I filled out before.

I’m not sure if all states have the same form, but I’m sure with a phone call to whatever cemetery you have in mind, you can find out.   I did look online and found that using various search criteria brought up mostly information about heirship for estates.

I would love to hear from others who have gone through this process. 

• Did you have any problems?

Do you think this is something you might do in the future?

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

TOMBSTONE TUESDAY ~ Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan

Woodlawn Cemetery, 19975 Woodward Ave.

Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit, Wayne, Michigan is just one of many cemeteries in Detroit, that are final resting places for my family.
 
I’ve been to the cemetery several times in recent years.  Using the “search” function in Legacy 8, I determined which of my ancestors are buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.  Please click here to see instructions on how to use the Legacy 8 search function.

This is the list created by Legacy 8.  There are 9 names on the list.



Here are the headstone pictures I have for this group.  Fortunately, I have pictures for all but two.  I have recently, via FindAGrave.com, requested headstone photos for Ralph Gillespie Forsythe and his wife, Katherine Martz.

All photos shown here were taken by me.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)

Robert A. Milne 1909-1969	Dorothy T. Milne nee Delahoyde 1913-1965	Joseph A. Milne 1883-1957
Merritt J. Quackenbush 1885-1955	Sarah C. Quackenbush nee Roe 1884-1952	Everett P. Roe 1893-1958 and Irene M. Roe nee Milne 1893-1989

How I am related to the ancestors buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.

DELAHOYDE, Dorothy – my Aunt (she married Robert Andrew Milne)
FORSYTH, Ralph G. – my 1st cousin twice removed
MARTZ, Katherine – the wife of Ralph G. Forsyth
MILNE, Irene “Peggy” – my maternal grand aunt
MILNE, Joseph Albert – my maternal grandfather
MILNE, Robert Andrew – my maternal uncle
QUACKENBUSH, James M. – my grandaunt’s husband’s sister’s husband
ROE, Everett P. – the husband of my grandaunt, Irene Milne
ROE, Sarah “Sally” – wife of the above James Quackenbush.

If you think you might be related to anyone mentioned in this blog post, please contact me.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

HAVE LIMITED TIME FOR RESEARCH? Here's What I Did Today in Just 60 minutes

As genealogists we all want more time.  Whether we work full time, part time or are retired.  There never seems to be enough time to work on our research or our files.  And, if you have a family with children there are even more distractions.

WHAT CAN WE DO IN A LIMITED AMOUNT OF TIME?

HERE ARE SOME THINGS I DID TODAY IN 60 MINUTES

• I went to findagrave.com and searched for memorials for one branch of the family.  I located 3, entered the memorial numbers in the User ID in Legacy.  I downloaded and saved the headstone photos to the digital folder and attached it to the burial photos in my database, for that person. 
• I entered a To-Do task to source the photo.
• From those finds I found out that these family members had died in Cabell County, West Virginia.  I know that the wvculture.org site has loads of vital records. 
• I located all three death certificates and death registers on the wvculture website.  I downloaded and saved them to my computer.
• I entered the information from the death records into my Legacy database for that person and created a To-Do item to source the death certificate.

AND THE LAST THING I DID DURING MY 60 MINUTES

• I went into the digital folder where I had just saved the death records for this family.  This is my Frampton family.
• I noticed that some of the death records (including the three I added today) had not been cropped and straightened, so I took care of that today.

Here’s how they looked prior to being edited.
 


I personally, don’t enter any images into my database without first editing them.  I use the Microsoft Office Picture Manager program to perform these tasks.  It’s easy and quick.

Here’s how they look now.  I began this process at 11:29 and finished at 11:34.  
So it took me only 5 minutes and look at the difference!



Here is a post I wrote about using the Microsoft Office Picture Manager program to edit images. The methods here can be used with most photo editing software.

Easy Document Editing

I hope this post has given you a couple of ideas for making use of those small windows of time we may find for our research.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

Family History Library - After you return home...then what?

Tuesday's Tip - Photo Repair and Restoration

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

MICHIGAN DEATH RECORD IMAGES FOR 1940 NOW ONLINE! Here’s how I found my family’s certificates

The website https://michiganology.org/vital-records/ has many wonderful records & historical information for Michigan researchers. 
Certainly the one I’ve used the most is their death index and images. The images for records from 1897-1920 have been online for a while now.

The images for 1921-1952 are being released as the 75 year restriction rolls around.  As of today, they have uploaded the images up to and including 1940.

So, today, I’m going to use my Legacy search function and see how many, if any, of my ancestors have deaths in Michigan in 1940.

To accomplish this I will go to the “Search” tab and then “Find.”
I want two criteria in my search:

• Place of death = Michigan
• Date of death = 1940

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)
 

And, here is my list



Let’s go over to seekingmichigan.org (UPDATE Oct 2019 - the seekingmichigan website if closed down - the new site is michiganology.org) and see how many of those four certificates I can locate.

NOTE:  As you know, uploading and indexing are not perfect sciences.  So, just because we hear that records are available, doesn’t mean they ALL will be.

How many of these death certificate images did I find?

FOUR OUT OF FOUR!!!

DEATH CERT FOR WILLIAM W. BUSH	DEATH CERT FOR WILLARD B. GOULD
DEATH CERT FOR MINNIE ERB	DEATH CERT FOR KATHERINE MARTZ FORSYTH

Wonderful!  I’ve downloaded each of them, cropped and corrected them and now I can add them to Legacy and source them.  That’s what I call 15 minutes well spent online.

TIP:  I do not like the look of images as they appear in our downloads.  I don’t like the black surrounding them and I don’t like them to be crooked or too grey.  I fix all of this before I ever save the digital image to my computer.  I takes about one minute to perform the task and makes your images look so much better in any report or if you upload them online.  See my “Other Posts” below for a post I wrote about this process.

Time to go work on those records.  Please let me know how many new records you find in this collection.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

MICHIGAN DEATH RECORDS ONLINE - Where can you find them?

Legacy 8 - THE SEARCH FUNCTION - What Can You Find?

EASY DOCUMENT EDITING - How to Straighten & Correct Images

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

ANCESTRY HINTS ~ Do you take advantage of this resource?

Maybe it’s only me, but sometimes I get in a rut with my research.  I sit down at my computer, look at my Legacy database, and try to decide who I’m going to work on today.  Or, maybe there was some note I wrote yesterday that’s on my desk that I need to go back to.

What would give me a fresh look and a new direction?  How about looking at my hints on Ancestry?

Do you look at your hints on Ancestry? 
Do you go through all of them?

Here’s what I am in the habit of doing.  I will see a new number up by the “shaky leaf” at the top right of the screen.  I’ll click on that to see what names pop up.  Generally, it’s people in a group I have recently worked on.  I may or may not look at the hint.  I rarely scroll through the hints list or use the other options available to us.  

My habit is to look at the hints, from the Facts page, for whichever ancestor I am currently working on. 

Here is what showed up for me today in the way of current hints.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT)


I do see two people on that list that I was working with yesterday.  Mary Johnston and Addison Boggs.

Next, I clicked on “See all recent hints in” and selected my primary tree on Ancestry.

That brought up this screen.



WOW!  That’s 13,905 hints total. 
I have 3,535 people in this tree.  NOTE:  I use my Ancestry trees for connections & sharing with cousins, gathering hints and for my DNA.  My primary records are all in Legacy, on my computer.  Any record I find on Ancestry is downloaded to my computer, saved in the appropriate digital folder and added & sourced in my Legacy program.  Ancestry is simply a tool for me.
I have to admit that I don’t do a lot of fiddling with the hints page.  However, maybe I should.
 
You can sort by

• Most recent
• Last name
• First name

Or you can filter by name.

These are all very helpful ways of focusing on a particular ancestor.
 
I love working with and finding photos for my ancestors. I see from the hints page that I have 1730 PHOTO hints.  Let’s take a look at those.  I didn’t sort these in any order, however, you do have that option.

In looking at the first 10 pages of 87 pages of photo hints, most of them were familiar.  They were images that have been added by me and then saved to other trees, or added by cousins.  By the time I got to page 15 I was seeing some new items.
 
It was actually very difficult to not stop and take a look at those items instead of finishing this post.  Guess where I’ll be going back to when this is published?

What about STORIES?  I have 119 story hints.  Those might be interesting to take a look at.

I see lots of interesting items here.  Everything from abstracts of war pensions to lineage to divorce packets to an entry that says “attacked by Indians.”  Certainly many of those are worth looking at.
 
The bottom line is, I don’t take enough advantage of the options offered to us on this website.  Do you?

I’m off to investigate some of those stories and other hints right now.  Please share with me what your experience is and whether or not you use all the options on this website.

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

OCCUPATION FILES ON ANCESTRY - 1600-1995 - What are they?  Have you seen these?

ADDING A RECORD TO LEGACY FROM ANCESTRY - A Step by Step Guide

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

HAPPY 179th BIRTHDAY TO MICHIGAN ~ The 26th state in our United States

My home state!

CLICK HERE TO LEARN 50 FACTS ABOUT MICHIGAN

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

NEW YORK NEWSPAPER LINKS ONLINE

New York!  I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of ancestors in both mine and my husband’s family, that have roots in New York.

It makes perfect sense because of all the immigrants that came in through the port of New York via Ellis Island.  That, of course, wasn’t the only port for our immigrant ancestors, but certainly an important one.  New York also being an early settlement, means many of our trails will lead back to that state.

There was a post recently on Facebook from Kenneth R. Marks who writes The Ancestor Hunt website and blog and has his Facebook site by the same name, click here for the link.

On January 15th he posted an article listing all the sites to find newspaper articles from New York.  There are over 1,000 FREE links for the state of New York.  Yes, FREE.

Here’s the link to that list New York Online Newspaper Summary

I’ve used the first collection, Old Fulton New York Postcards-Hidden Gems, extensively and wrote a blog post about using that particular site.  I’ve found dozens are newspaper articles and obituaries for my family.  However, I wasn’t aware of the many other sites to find my New York ancestors in newspapers.

As an example, using The Ancestor Hunt website, I selected Erie Buffalo NY Courier 1888-1926 to search for my husband’s family, the Finks or Dollers.  When I clicked on the link this is what I found.

(CLICK ON ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IT) 
 


I selected the very first icon for the 1888 edition.  What I see next is this.



It appears, as I click on each of these icons, that this is the complete scanned version of this newspaper, page by page.  The third PDF icon led me to page 1 of the August 26, 1888 edition.  I used CNTRL F to try a search on the page and found out these images have been OCR’d.  Therefore, a search is possible.

It is certainly a slow process, if you are going to search each and every page of a particular edition.  Sometimes this may be necessary.  However, using the methods I displayed in my blog post, going directly to the Old Fulton Postcard website directly, is much more efficient.  In doing a search directly on that site this morning, I located a death notice for my husband’s great grandmother from 1950.



Here’s a close up of Bertha’s name.  This shows us the month, the date and the place of her death.  Oct. 6, in Alden.



As you can see and probably already know, newspapers are one of our best sources for finding information on our ancestors.  Whether it’s the date & place of their death, their marriage, a business they may have owned, a lawsuit they were involved in, an accident or the birth of a child, newspapers were the social media of the day.

I’d love to hear about how newspapers have assisted you with your ancestor’s stories.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2016   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION