Note to Self:  Cemeteries are your genealogical friend.

With the holidays and all the family gatherings, I couldn’t help but think of all the folks that have passed and weren’t with us this holiday season.

It also reminded me of how I first really got the ‘genealogy’ bug, years ago…

As I was just starting out and putting together my initial information, I called an older cousin to see what she knew about the family.  To my disappointment, she told me she didn’t remember much – she wasn’t all that interested in that stuff growing up.  I wasn’t going to be brushed off – I continued to talk.  At one point I asked her if she knew where any of our family was buried.  “All I know is that Charlie Humphreys is buried down in Cotton Hill.”

I researched and I found that there was indeed a Cotton cemetery about an hour and a half away.  I recruited my mother.  Off we went on a Saturday morning, Gazetteer and camera in hand.  We found the cemetery, which had been neglected a bit and was in a residential area.  It is a fairly small cemetery; maybe the size of two house lots.

My mother gets out of the car and starts with the first stone: “Costigan.  Ann Costigan.” “What are you doing?” I asked her.  “That’s going to take forever!  You don’t know how to do this.”  I was now acting cocky and taunting her.  I then told her to watch me; I’ll show her how it’s done.

“Char-lie!!! Char-lie!!! Where are yooooooou?” I began yelling as I started running all over this small cemetery.  I must have looked like I was having a fit of some sort.  My mother tried to hush me so that the neighbors wouldn’t be scared and call the police.

I finally stopped, looked down, and had a heart attack, for Charlie heard my call.

I found 14 ancestors in that little cemetery that day.  What an emotional high!

And so the passion began.