Tombstone
Information on the internet
We
were really quite surprised to see Dad with Mum and Gram, waiting in
the car for us when we came rushing out the school door. I
thought he would be gardening on this June day and not even thinking of
taking time to go for a drive.
When we got in the car, Gram was holding two potted geraniums on her
knee. I knew this meant we were making the yearly visit to plant
flowers in the cemetery where her parents, brother and four sisters
were buried.
As we drove along the road to the graveyard, we listened to a
continuous summary of who had lived on the farms in years gone by.
Before we started through the gate of the cemetery, Gram stopped and
looked up the hill, to where she had lived in the early years of her
life. Although she was not one to show much emotion, I thought I saw a
tear roll down her cheek. She was probably thinking of the sadness of
bidding good-by to loved ones who were visited there by the angel of
death. Maybe she was remembering following the horse drawn hearse that
carried her relatives to this, their final resting place.
Due to a broken hip that had not been properly set, Gram was very lame,
so she held onto Mum’s arm and used a cane as we made our way down
through the cemetery. Nothing would stop her from visiting the graves
of her loved ones although walking on this rough terrain was difficult
for her.
Dad was loaded down with grass-shears, a shovel, a pail of topsoil and
a tray of petunias. I carried the geraniums and was warned not to break
off the blossoms. Mum handed Cliff the Brownie Box Camera as Gram
wanted pictures of the tombstones to put in her album as she thought
the ones she had taken several years ago had faded and turned a bit
yellow.
With the coming of digital cameras and the internet, only having photos
of tombstones in family albums has changed. “The New Brunswick
Gravestone Photo Project is on a mission to preserve digital images of
the gravestones of our ancestors. As decades pass, many of the
inscriptions these stones originally contained are becoming harder, if
not impossible, to read. Some stones have even disappeared entirely. By
archiving the images digitally, the group feels they can help save
these important records for future generations.”
At this date, they have 1,700 gravestone photo records from across New
Brunswick on their website at http://www.newbrunswickgravestones.org/
and are hoping volunteers will help increase this number to include
photos from all cemeteries in the province. The search engine allows
one to search by county, cemetery or surname.
In Saint John County, I was very interested in the 386 images from St.
Mary's Catholic Cemetery on the Loch Lomond Road, 159 from St. Thomas
Anglican Church Cemetery and 71 from Saint Patrick's Roman Catholic
Church Cemetery at Black River, 80 from Holy Trinity Anglican
Parish Cemetery, St. Martins and 140 from Fernhill Cemetery plus
others.
Saint Andrew's Kirk United Church Cemetery at Hammomd River, Kings
County has a total of 247 images on the website.
Not all the gravestones in some of the listed cemeteries have been
photographed and placed on the website as yet.
There are two databases on cemeteries on the Provincial Archives of New
Brunswick website at http://archives.gnb.ca/.
One is of the forty-four cemeteries in the land currently occupied by
CFB Gagetown with the transcriptions, digitized photos and database
being done by a private individual and the work donated to the
Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.
The other database project was initiated by the New Brunswick
Genealogical Society and transcriptions and compilations were done by
volunteers. It holds written information on 947 cemeteries with 217,782
records.
Thanks to volunteers and the internet, one can often find cemetery
records and information for the family tree, by sitting at the
computer, instead of actually searching through graveyards.
By the way, tours and walks
through cemeteries are often a way to learn. One such is a Ghost Walk
sponsored by the Kings County Historical & Archival Society which
will be held on July 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Holy Trinity Cemetery at
Sussex Corner. Contact the Kings County Museum 832-6009 for more
details.
***
Query 1551
Floyd - Mercer: Patrick
Thomas Floyd of Sussex Parish married Sophia Mercer in Norton, Kings
County, New Brunswick, on 27 Jul1837. Sophia was a daughter of
Joseph Jr. and Frances Baxter Mercer, and a granddaughter of Loyalist
Captain Joseph and Sarah ( Shaw) Mercer. Her father had come with
his parents in 1783 from New York on the ‘Sovereign’ to a land grant in
Burton, and then to Saint John. Joseph Jr. Mercer came to the
Bloomfield - Norton area to settle and raise his family. Patrick and
Sophia Floyd, after marrying, were first in the USA where three of
their children were born. They then settled on the Mercer Settlement
Road in Norton. They later sold their family farm and moved to
Saint John, where they operated a grocery business on Wall Street.
Their children are: Chester, Emma, Matilda, Frances Jane, Lydia
Elizabeth, Fostina, Stephen, Anna, and Ella Floyd. Who were Patrick
Floyd's parents and siblings? Is there a Family Bible and are there any
photographs of the Family?
BARBARA F. PEARSON
476 Pearsonville Road,
Pearsonville, N.B.
Canada, E5P1S6
E-mail barbara3@nb.sympatico.ca
Telephone 506-433-3569
Query 1552
Keefe - Killam: Looking
for photos or any information on Malcolm Keefe who was married to
Gladys Killam. Would also like photos of their shoe shops.
Mrs. Wendy (Killam) Whelen
27 Lynnwood Dr., Apt. 408
Brantford, Ontario,
Canada, N3S 6S4
E-mail wwhelen@bmts.co
Query 1553
Nowlin - Dewer:
I'm interested in finding the parents and siblings of George Vesy
Nowlin, born 1800 in Saint John, New Brunswick and died there in 1885.
He married Eleanor Caroline Dewer on 7 Mar 1843 at Trinity Church in
Saint John and they had five children: Ella (Charles L.
Richards), Georgiana (Harlan P. Reynolds), Alice, Annie and
George Edward. According to his obit he was Member of Board of Health,
Albion Lodge, Common Council Queens Ward . He held a great deal of real
estate property in Saint John, which was destroyed in the fire. George
and Eleanor Nowlin are buried in Fern Hill Cemetery.
RENE KIMBALL
13073 W 20th Ave
Golden, CO, 80401, USA
E-mail: renekimball@msn.com
