Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Really starting to get into findagrave.com. I've branched out from Revolutionary war vets to those from 1812. The virtual cemetery for the first is around 300 and the latter around 100. Many of the Rev War Vets came from New England to claim bounty land or to buy land from the speculators. The town of Rutland, Jefferson, NY got it's name from so many people coming there from the Rutland, VT area. Very hard to get much information on them and their stones tend to be hard to read.

Their children fought in 1812 and many then moved west. Their stones are in much better shape. Information on their lives is much better. The newspapers started up around 1870 and an occasional obituary can be found. I've been very lucky to link several families families together across 2 generations.

Each cemetery is an island in the landscape. Each has different maintenance standards size, types of trees, roads or no roads, some of the smaller ones are dominated by one family and the dates tell you when they owned most of the farms in the area.