Mausoleums and More

A gorgeous fall day in south Texas prompted a visit to Mission Park South Cemetery on San Antonio's south side. No gravestones of pioneers migrating west, here the overall impression is of the opulence of the 1920's - those grand days before the Great Depression.

Hilton Head to Vicksburg III

The last cemetery stops of the trip home to Texas were in Mississippi where Debby and I made a few stops to find the graves of distant cousins. It seems that Paulding, Mississippi where some of our Reeves family's descendants had relocated was only a few miles out of our way so we made a little detour to the cemetery there.

Paulding in Jasper County had been a metropolis during the Ante-Bellum period but was devastated by Reconstruction. When the railroad passed it by, the days of prosperity were over for the community. The passing of the community's affluence is evident in the cemetery where older graves with elaborate iron fences were neglected and overgrown that day.

FLORA A. ACKER

wife of

WALTER ACKER

Died Aug. 6th, 1874

Aged 25 years 1 month

and 11 days

Kentucky's Red River Meeting House

The cemetery at the Red River Meeting House just south of Russellville in Logan County, Kentucky contains the graves of numerous soldiers of the Revolution and the War of 1812. The site is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The "Shaker Movement" of the Presbyterian Church began at the Red River Meeting House and the great revival of 1800 produced the first ever camp meeting. It is said that thousands came in wagons and stayed for days.

The cabin currently located at the site was built in 1994 to replace the original which collapsed in 1856.

Sacred
to the Memory
of
EVAN McPHESON
Born in the Highlands
of Scotland in 1787
Immigrated to this country
in 1809 and Died
in 1849

At right - the back of the stone
is said to be the
23rd Psalm in Gaelic





(Thanks to my cousin, Debby Johnson, for her photos.)

Bogus Grave Memorials on Find A Grave

No tombstones today - I thought instead I would get on my soapbox in regard to the current abundance of bogus grave memorials on Find A Grave. I have always felt that Find A Grave was a wonderful resource and have submitted all of the cemetery photos I take to that site. I also search Find A Grave in the course of researching various individuals. It’s a great source of birth and death dates for those who lived long before birth and death certificates existed.

However lately I see more and more bogus grave memorials entered there. Yesterday I discovered a fictitious grave memorial for a great great uncle. One of his descendants had previously submitted a photo of his gravestone and entered a memorial for the cemetery where he is actually buried which is in the same county. There was another bogus memorial in the same Kentucky cemetery by the same person (not a descendant) for another great great uncle from the same family who had actually died in another state.

Am I the only one who is concerned about this practice and how rampant it is becoming on Find A Grave? Find A Grave doesn’t seem to care and apparently has no restrictions as to whether entering a memorial should require the presence of a legitimate grave in the cemetery. They also don’t make it very easy to contact them to complain – hence my post here.

It concerns me that these practices will eventually ruin the site as a tool for researchers if they haven’t already. I’m not sure whether I will stop submitting my photos there but I may investigate the new Cemetery Transcription Project of the US GenWeb Archives as an alternative to Find A Grave.

Anyone else have an opinion?

January 2014 - Update
This week I've encountered another incident concerning a bogus Find A Grave memorial. I received a message through Find A Grave requesting that I add a relationship link to the memorial I had placed several years ago for Thomas Slayden at Maplewood Cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky. The link was supposedly to his father Stokley Slayden, memorial number 123010442, at a cemetery in Weakley County, Tennessee. Several years ago a memorial (84242079) had been entered for Stokley Slayden at the Baltimore Cemetery in Graves County, Kentucky where both he and his wife Nancy are buried. The person who made the duplicate memorial in Weakley County had copied the photo from the legitimate first memorial and used it for the bogus one. I wrote the person and nicely told them that I had linked the grave of Thomas Slayden to his father's actual grave in the Baltimore Cemetery and that they should delete their duplicate. Today I see that they have now added their duplicate memorial along with the purloined photo to the Baltimore Cemetery.

There are genealogists who praise Find A Grave and promote it, but I personally have serious misgivings about the entire site based on the numerous incidences of fraudulent memorials.

I have to wonder how many people have made trips, possibly from some distance, to visit a cemetery where the grave as listed on Find A Grave doesn't exist.

The Brick Church

The Brick Church of current day Alamance County, North Carolina began as the German reform church known as "Der Klapp Kirche" (The Clapp Church). It was established by my 7th great grandfather Jorg Valentine Klapp and his brother John Ludwig, who with their parents and siblings left Rotterdam on the ship the James Goodwill arriving in Pennsylvania on September 27, 1727.

Living in Berks County, Pennsylvania until around 1745, Valentine moved south to North Carolina where he settled in the Beaver Creek section of Guilford County. John Ludwin Clapp and other family members soon followed.

The original wooden structure was replaced by a brick building in the 19th century. Some of the burials in the church cemetery date to the 18th century.

Sacred
to the Memory of

BARNEY CLAPP

who departed this life
Sept. 27, 1844

Aged 80 years 8 Ms and 10 days

A soldier of the Revolution

In Memory of

ELIZABETH CLAPP

Born January
the 24, 1811

and died October 22
1840

DANIEL FOUST

Born
Oct. 18, 1783

Died
Feb. 28, 1882

Aged 93 Ys 4 Mo & 15 Da