Making Connections: Cemetery Safety, Search Engine Saviours and Delicious Family History

Graver concerns

Having recently escaped a dangerous situation in an isolated cemetery, I would suggest that common sense be inserted at the very top of Sharon Carmack’s suggested toolkit of cemetery research equipment (October 2000). She made light of gang members who hang out in cemeteries — but her cemetery gang members must be of the sweetheart variety.

On a chill, gray February Sunday, my sister and I barely escaped two teen perps (and two adult accomplices, waiting for them in a car at the cemetery gates). We’d visited our parents’ grave and the only others there were, as we later determined, the four perps. Not good odds. Relying on the presence of others for our safety wasn’t an option. We were on our own in a very isolated place and only with the help of God and our wits did we escape those younger and more nimble than we. Narrowly. When my sister reported the incident to the cemetery’s manager the next day, he told her that the teens sounded like two for whom the police had been watching.

Be critically aware of your surroundings and fellow cemetery visitors. And visit only on days when bona fide workers and funerals will be present.

ELEANOR C. NUGENT

Bridgewater, NJ

Answers online

I have been doing genealogy for 25 years or more and I have been doing memory book pages for just a couple of years. I did a name search on your site <www.familytreemagazine.com/search> and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I have been working on my husband’s family name for more than 20 years, and there aren’t that many Wolvens in the US, so I have been lucky being able to trace them, with help from others. But today I hit the jackpot: I found my husband’s great-grandmother’s Social Security death information. I knew very little about her. Now I have a birth date, year and the month and year that she died. So I’m sending for the Social Security information to see if I can find out who her parents were. I have never had that luck with her before.

ARDIS WOLVEN

via e-mail

Appetizing article

I just happened to find your magazine. I opened it up and flipped to Lucy Amaral’s article about preserving a family’s food history (December 2000). Well, I had to buy the magazine, because that’s what I’ve been working on for a month! I took that article as a sign that I was on the right track.

I have over 70 pages of recipes, ideas, memories and helpful hints. And I still haven’t heard from more than half the people I solicited for recipes. Your article gave me encouragement and additional ideas for approaching this in a more serious fashion, history-wise.

WENDY (BOUGHNER) WHIPPLE

Matteson, III.

What’s in the cards

I was so pleased to read the article on “Postcards from the Past” in your February issue. I am a new subscriber and this is the first issue I have received. Postcards really do tell a story as is evidenced in finding over 850 of them in my parents’ attic two years ago after they had both died after living into their mid-90s. I included the information on these cards in my family history that I wrote for my siblings and two children. I learned so much about my family that had never been discussed previously — it was truly enlightening!

LUCIA GRIFFITH

via e-mail