Cemetery Transcriptions - Volume 1 by Ginny and Katie Chung
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Cemetery Transcriptions - Volume 1 By Ginny and Katie Chung HOLY HOOD CEMETERY Transcribed May – June 2001 About the authors Ginny and Katie Chung are a mother-daughter team. Ginny has been the family historian researching her roots for over 20 years. Katie joined her mother in the last 5 years searching out long lost relatives and learning more about their family history. The majority of their family settled in the growing Irish and German sections of Boston in the early to late 1800’s. In 2000, Ginny and Katie traveled to Germany to meet their distant cousins and they have plans to go to Ireland in 2002. Ginny works full time as a manager at IBM and works on her hobby evenings and weekends. Katie is entering High School in the fall and enjoys horseback riding and soccer as well as dabbling in the family research with her mom. They are joined with their 2 men in their family who do not share the enthusiasm but are willing to be pulled along in the travels. Special thanks are to: - The men in our family – Kar and Karl Chung - Bob Kasaras from the Marlborough Cemetery Dept – for the loan of the Marlborough Cemetery maps so we could include them on the CD - John Buczek for helping get the word out - Holy Trinity Church Newsgroup who we shared some initial findings and were very helpful in correcting some of our attempts at reading the older headstones This document its content are copyright ©2001 by Virginia M Chung. This book and its content may NOT be copied, altered, converted or uploaded to ANY electronic system or BBS. - Introduction My daughter and I started a summer project in 2001. We transcribed selected headstones in various cemeteries. The criteria varied from cemetery to cemetery depending on the size. In each of the cemeteries, we visited there were a variety of headstones, which were unreadable (either broken or weather-beaten, or fallen upside down). For those which, fell into these categories we did not photograph them. There were others which, you could make out parts of what was originally carved. We photographed these and gave our best assessment on what it stated based on personal inspection as well as the headstones immediately surrounding them. With the exception of the first cemetery we did, we photographed each headstone included in the cemetery. Most cemeteries have records of those interred in their cemetery. They know who was buried there and when unless their records were destroyed. Some are even computerized. However, they don’t collect what is listed on the headstone. In addition, there is often a wealth of information on some headstones. It often points to other family lines based on who is buried with your ancestor opening a new avenue for research. What is written on the gravestone is different than what the cemetery will have in their records. First, it doesn't necessarily list all that are interred. To the right is one of my Irish ancestors buried in the German section in Holyhood cemetery. Even, though the headstone only lists 4 names, contacting the administration building for this plot identified a total of 17 individuals buried here. This turned out to be quite a find and enabled me to extend my research further. 1. Cook, Catherine 57 October 31, 1887 2. Coort, Robert 67 October 16, 1890 3. Donahoe, -- (Inf) February 6, 1871 4. Donahue, Annie M 30 Nov 14, 1887 5. Donahoe, Catherine F 3 Sept 11, 1860 6. Donahoe, Cath T 52 Sept 1, 1924 7. Donahoe, Evelyn child Oct 24, 1910 8. Donahoe, Mary 90 April 17, 1953 9. Donahoe, Mary E 65 May 31, 1905 10. Donahoe, Nellie 44 May 10, 1911 11. Donahoe, Patrick 50 January 3, 1892 12. Donahoe, Timothy -- March 12, 1972 13. Parker, Ellen 70 May 5, 1910 14. Singleton, Dennis 77 February 27, 1897 15. Singleton, Denis J 31 Dec 25, 1886 16. Singleton, Grace 65 July 21, 1892 17. Singleton, Grace child August 17, 1866 I literally fell over this headstone back in 1984 when I was looking for my Dirksmeier family in the German section in Holyhood. I had pretty much tabled my research on the Donahoes because there it was such a common name in Boston. But when I found this grave it and then verified that it was indeed my relatives, it reopened up my entire line. Since then, I have always been fascinated with headstones. Some even list the parents of people buried there. And of course the elusive “A native of the parish of.... Co. Cork, Ireland.” The moral of this story is to do both, get what the cemetery records are and check out the headstone. You may get a lucky surprise. If you have any Irish ancestors, like me, they are very hard to usually pin place of origin.A list of some of the Boston related cemeteries can be found on: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gchung/cemetery.htm My daughter and I wrestled with how best to present this information. We finally decided on the following format. The transcriptions are separated into 2 PDF documents. 1. Holyhood.PDF – includes transcriptions found in Holyhood cemetery. It also contains a surname index as well as a place name index associated with the headstones found 2. Marlborough.PDF – includes the transcriptions for 7 Marlborough cemeteries. It also contains a surname index. Headstones which, have a corresponding photo, will have noted a .jpg file after the transcriptions. For each cemetery visited, there is a folder on the CD with the cemetery name. That folder contains all of the pictures found taken at that cemetery. The naming convention of each file SURNAME_FIRSTNAME_DoDeath.JPG. Occasionally you will see an “_a”, or “_b” etc…that correlates to multiple sides of the same headstone. Finally for individuals which had the same name and year of death I distinguished them by a “_2” Some of these headstones were very difficult to read. So I did my best at determining what was written on doing the transcriptions. There are probably some errors there – these were unintentional. We made every attempt to photograph every headstone, but there is a possibility we missed one as many of these cemeteries are not nicely laid out. Each headstone has a unique numeric number associated with it. A “~” was used in the transcription to indicate that this information was found on another side of the same headstone. Holy Hood Cemetery Alternative records checked ? Selected Vital Birth/Death records in Massachusetts Archives - (Noted as VR) ? Holyhood cemetery administration records (Noted as HC) The German ones are interesting. Many are written in German. Makes the transcribing a bit difficult given the weathered headstones, it's harder to guess what the letters are. German words and their English equivalent ? alter old ? geboren born ? gestorben died ? jahre year ? hier ruhe in Frieden here rests ? sohn son Marlborough Cemeteries A fantastic bonus was finding a copy of Marlborough Burial Ground Inscriptions: Old Common Spring Hill and Brigham Cemeteries published by Franklin P Rice 1908. This book was a limited edition – only 100 copies were printed and listed the transcriptions to 3 very old Marlborough cemeteries at the turn of the 20th century. It’s amazing how much the cemeteries must have changed in close to 100 years. Headstones which, Franklin transcribed completely, were now half buried with only the upper portions still visible. Also, the New England weather can be brutal at times wearing many of the headstones down so only small portions of the headstones can now be made out. Without Franklin’s earlier transcription determining what was written on some of these headstones would have been impossible. For these 3 cemeteries I have reprinted his transcriptions and matched them to the headstone photo taken now in 2001. In all 3 cemeteries there were headstones which Franklin had transcribed which I did not photograph. Either the stone no longer existed in 2001 or was so badly weather-beaten it was totally unreadable and therefore not photographed. Also, in all 3 cemeteries there were headstones which Franklin missed and I photographed. Headstones transcribed 1. Holyhood 1347 (1 – 1337, M47 – M50) 2. Brigham 191 (1338 – 1528) 3. Old Common 258 (1529 – 1786) 4. Robin Hill 21 (1787 – 1807) 5. Rocklawn 709 (1808 – 2516) 6. Spring Hill 533 (2530 – 3062) 7. Weeks 107 (3063 – 3169) 8. Wilson 220 (3170 – 3389) Unique Family Surnames found 1793 (593 unique surnames in Marlborough) Photos 2656 1. Holyhood 441 2. Brigham 203 3. Old Common 249 4. Robin Hill 24 5. Rocklawn 871 6. Spring Hill 494 7. Weeks 123 8. Wilson 232 9. Maps 19 1. Holyhood Cemetery – Established in 1857 Address: 990 La Grange St West Roxbury, Mass 02132 Located: Off of Rte 9 in Brookline, Mass (just over the Newton border) Phone 1-617-327-1010 Transcribed – May and June 2001 Photo of Map included. Consecrated in 1857 although there are individual buried in the cemetery at least 10 yrs earlier. Cemetery Administrator charges a fee for records. Criteria for transcribing: (Approximately 35% of older sections 10% of newer sections) 1.Any which list place names (if the neighboring headstone shares the same surname) 2.Entire German section (again many Irish ones - that don't have place names associated). 3.Any which have recognized German surnames throughout the cemetery 1337 Headstones transcribe 441 Photos 2. Brigham Cemetery Located: Corner of Rte 20 and Broad St. Marlborough , Mass Established: 1793 No written records remained of those interred – Marlborough city Hall burnt down in 1902 Transcribed – July 2001 Photo of Map included – lists family locations Indexed alphabetically – not in the order found within the cemetery.