Tombstone Tuesday - Another Reason to Like Find-A-Grave

My photo (above), ca 2000 taken at Grove St. Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The new photo by Rob, with plaque

I always ask permission to use another's photo, I tell them the purpose, and once permission is granted, I send them the link to my blog.  On my Tombstone, Tuesday post of December 22, 2009, see Tuesday Tombstone - James Bishop, you really couldn't read what was written.  The monument was so old, but since I had a map with his plot marked, I knew it was his, plus I could read a little of the inscription.

After I copied my photo into my genealogy software and published that blog, I then went to  Find-A-Grave.  Once at the site, I checked to see if there was already a picture of the Bishop monument, and if not, I would submit mine.  Talk about luck. I now saw the same cemetery monument with an engraved plaque at the base!  I was thrilled.  Rob graciously let me copy his photo.  See FindAGrave site with the James Bishop tombstone to view that page.

Moral is not a bad idea to often check your ancestor's graves at FindAGrave sites to see if additional photos have been posted.  And, always read the messages left.  I have found distant cousins that way.

Tombstone Tuesday - Erastus Cross and two cemetery markers

 Erastus Cross was murdered and his name is on two different cemetery stones. Is that unusual, perhaps not, but to be in two countries, the United States and Canada, perhaps so.

One cemetery is in Enosburgh Falls, Vermont, see Find A Grave.  (I don't have permission to post the photo here.)


The second is at Pigeon Hill Cemetery in St. Armand, Missisquoi Co., Quebec, Canada.  I don't know the distance between the two, went to the Pigeon Hill Cemetery in August 1999 and was rather surprised to see Erastus's name on the Cross monument.

From newspaper issue of June 21, 1856, Free Press, Burlington, Vt.  "DEATH BY VIOLENCE -- a dispatch from Swanton informs us that Erastus Cross, was killed in Franklin, VT. Monday, by a Frenchman, who struck him with a club, killing him instantly."


Both cemeteries are near the border of Canada and Vermont, but I don't know the distance.

Erastus Cross was my fourth great-granduncle.