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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.  

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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

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Ruby M. Cusack is a genealogy buff living in New Brunswick, Canada. Send your New Brunswick genealogical queries to her at:  rmcusack@nbnet.nb.ca.  Include your name and mailing address for the benefit of the readers of the newspaper who do not have access to E-mail but could have information to share with you. Please put "Query" followed by the surnames in your query. For more information on submitting queries, visit http://www.rubycusack.com/Query-Instructions.html
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