Find A Grave - Part 2

Back in the Spring of 2011, I made my first official genealogy visit to Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, California.  After locating where the unmarked graves are of my Flanagan great great grandparents in Block 82, I almost fell over the headstone of another set of my great great grandparents, Borchers, a few plots over. In fact, I have 4 sets of great great grandparents buried at Tulocay Cemetery.  That's a lot of ancestors in one place that can lead you to your family history.  I have had success on all four lines to boot.

Taking photos of headstones is key to research. They can be so telling.  For example, I found Henry and Anna Borchers at Tulocay Cemetery with the exact years of birth and death that I had on hand.  Right next to them was one of their son's graves.  Family trees at cemeteries can keep going, especially if you look at the overall cemetery as a whole.  There are actually three of the Borchers' children buried there along with grandchildren.  In Northern California alone, there are three additional Borchers children buried in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Solano Counties.

Henry and Anna Borchers had nine children in all.  They have an infant child buried in Minnesota and two of their other children buried in North Dakota.  I entered the three children that knew of buried at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, CA, and found that the other six children had already been entered into Find A Grave by others in their respective cemetery locations.

The interesting catch with www.findagrave.com is that you can connect people to their parents and spouse on up the family line.  I have done this.  This is almost like building your own family tree based on final resting places.  You can also request that a volunteer go to the given cemetery and photograph the headstone.

Now, I have had great success so far in finding my German relatives across the U.S. but also in finding my Irish ancestors who are buried in the Irish Settlement Cemetery in Newport, New York.  I thank everyone who has photographed headstones.  I have even uploaded my own headstone photos.

I leave everyone with an example of the progress on Find A Grave.  I was able to connect already posted online memorials (as they call them) for my ancestors on my Borchers side.  I started with Henry and Anna Borchers at Tulocay Cemetery and the photo of their headstone.  Armed with their exact dates of birth and death along with their given full names and nicknames, I posted a memorial that I hope relatives will appreciate for the family tree.


Henry and Anna Borchers
Hans Heinrich Conrad Borchers and Anna Marie Jackel Borchers
Children:
-Emilie Regina Barbara Borchers - Buried in MN with her Jackel relatives
-Elizabeth Borchers Strehlow - Buried in Healdsburg, CA
-William Borchers - Buried in Mendocino County, CA
-Martha Sophia Dorthea Borchers Joersz - Buried in ND
-Henry Ludwig Christian Borchers - Buried in ND
-Matilda Margaretha Borchers Weber Adams - Buried in Vallejo, CA
-Albert Borchers - Buried at Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, CA
-Clara Borchers Gruenhagen - Buried at Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, CA
-Herbert Herman Leonhardt Borchers - Buried at Tulocay Cemetery, Napa, CA

Above is a great start on Find A Gave for the above family unit.  In fact, several of these online memorials above have their spouses linked to them already.  That can be a project in and of itself.  I've even linked Anna Borchers to her parents in the cemetery in MN.  By the way, it looks to be out in the middle of farmland near Havana, MN when I map it on Google Earth.

I just can't say enough good things about Find A Grave at this point.  It is worth a review by everyone and a contribution if you have already taken photos of headstone.  Search and Contribute!