 I have learned a lot
about cemetery research from a mysterious
headstone that bears the name of my great-uncle James McCaskey, who was killed
in the Civil War. After much searching, I found this marker in the same Pennsylvania
cemetery where many of my other McCaskey ancestors are buried. It reads:James McCaskey Born April 12, 1839 Died June 16, 1862 James Island, S.C. Those details are all
correct; the military action on James island was the Battle of Secessionville. The problem is that the notification of
his death says that his body was never found. The official records say that the
Confederate troops buried the Union soldiers killed in the battle (some 509 of
them) in unmarked graves on the battlefield. North Sewickley Cemetery records
indicated that the headstone was placed in 1875, after Mrs. Jane McCaskey
purchased three adjoining plots and ordered three matching stones — one for her
recently deceased husband John, one for herself, and one for her missing eldest
son James. Sure enough, the
marker next to the one for James marks the grave of my great-grandmother Jane
McCaskey. But on the far side of her grave, the ground has been cut away, and a
gravel road lies several feet below the resulting ledge. So where is Great-Grandpa John? There is no sign of him or his
tombstone at all. Was he ever there? Did an earthmover carry him away when the
road was put in? Or is he in the plot marked with his son's tombstone? At this point the solution to the
problem becomes too macabre to consider, so I am willing to accept what I THINK
I know without further investigation. Lesson Number One: A
tombstone does not always equal a real burial. Obviously, James's headstone
marks an empty grave, a not uncommon phenomenon during a war that swallowed up
so many young men on distant battlefields. The Grand Army of the Republic
honors James McCaskey's service every Memorial Day by placing a flag on the
grave site, but even their records stop short of stating that he is actually
buried there.  Lesson Number Two: The
lack of a headstone does not necessarily mean that no grave ever existed. As
time passes, stones crumble, weeds take over, land subsides, new demands for
grave sites force owners to change the layout of their cemetery plots. In this
picture, you can see that Jane
McCaskey's stone now teeters dangerously close to the edge of the cut-away
bank. In fact, it is largely supported by the roots of the tree in view just behind the stone. John's
grave would have been on the far side, since wives were nearly always buried to
the left of their husbands. John has disappeared, but we know from court
records and other documents that he was buried in that location in 1875. Lesson
Number Three: Burial practices
change over time. While I was planning this blog post, I received a message
from another genealogist, a distant cousin of my husband's, who had found the
graves of my husband's grandfather and great-grandfather. I was astonished to learn that both men
were buried in the same grave at St. Mary Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio — one
above the other. The cemetery records show John Christoph Schreiber
(1845-1889) in section A, lot 48
North grave 4 E.D. (which stands
for extra deep, or at about eight feet). His son, John C. Schriber, Jr.
(1867-1928) is in section A, lot 48 North, grave 4 O.T.(on top, or at about 4
feet). Cemeteries
can tell us a great deal about those whose lives we are researching. Sometimes,
perhaps, they tell us more than we really wanted to know! |
