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| Looking inside the Persons Family Cemetery - summer 2011 |
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| Standing inside the Persons Family Cemetery- summer 2011 |
Drive down any 2-lane country road in the south and you'll see family cemeteries peppered in the open fields or headstones peeking over the wall in a clump of trees, with a thin rusty fence encircling the grave stones or a rock wall or so many times, nothing at all. Inside, there are sunken places in the ground, headstones are broken, some tilted skyward, amid the leaves, poison ivy, thorny bushes and trees, usually in disrepair and mostly forgotten.
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| After the clean up in April 2012 |
When digging your "roots," there comes a time that you have to go to the place of your family. We made two visits prior to this weekend to: locate the cemetery, check out the records at the local historical archives, clean up the cemetery, and now dig in the cemetery. Because of the research, I know who the cemetery was built for and names of the family members that were laid here.
Sadly, there is only one complete headstone left. The others have been broken, moved or taken.
Grady is a local historian who uses a long metal rod to find headstones that have fallen and are hidden under decades of leaves and dirt. He found Lovett Persons' (1814-1862) flat stone this way.
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| Feb. 2013 |
Claude came out with his divining rods to help locate
the burial spot for Jones Persons (1760-1849).
I found a written notice which says that Lovett Persons (Jones' youngest son) paid to have this rocked wall built around his Father's grave.
We found a stone at this spot, but the stone was flat with no writing.The divining rods led us to several possible places, soft spots in the ground, but - no stone markers to let us know who was laid here.
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| summer 2011 |
The highlight for the day was finding the other half to this broken head stone. I thought it was for a child, but there were no records, family bible or census listing a name or family member.
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| James Persons - Nov. 13, 1855- Feb. 20, 1856 upper half - found Feb. 2013 |
The inscription on James headstone-
Child of Lovett & M.A. Persons
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Sleep, Loved one! In thy Lonely bed,
Sleep, Loved one! In thy Lonely bed,
Beneath the green turf, damp and chill;
For "blessed are the dead."
Whisper sweet voices, soft and still.
Whisper sweet voices, soft and still.
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| Feb. 2013 |
We found all the missing slabs for
Lovett's flat stone and pieced it together.
Lovett's flat stone and pieced it together.
Now if someone visits the Persons Family Cemetery; they will find Malinda, Lovett and Sweet Baby James.
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| Feb. 2013 |
(706-646-2437)
for the records that are available for anyone who has the desire and time to do the research.
If you do family research, be sure to also document where a person is buried. Go to-
You can post a photo of the person and a picture of the gravestone. You may also want to include the obituary, the names of the parents, siblings and a bio. if you do not have the obituary.
Hop over to
So much Gratitude and Love for my Ancestors!
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7 comments:
What an interesting thing to do. I told my Mom I wanted to be cremated and just put 'somewhere' and she said well how will generations to come find you? They won't I guess. I do like old grave markers! Thank you for linking with Gratitude Sunday! Hugs, Linda
Oh how wonderful and fascinating. LOVED your post and love the work you are doing to find your families.
We so many being cremated now, I still think there needs to be a marker to tell others that you were here, even for such a short time.
Linda and Lady Linda -
Like you both- I'm going to be cremated, but I have seen the importance of finding your past family, that I am in the process of putting a metal marker on the back of my parent's gravestone with my full name, birth date and later death date. I've instructed my daughters & husband to bury my ashes in the front of my parent's headstone and plant some daffodil bulbs or plants on top of me!!
divining can be so amazing! i like that rock wall.
I have a plot and will have a stone - at Arlington Memorial. They can bury me or cremate me - depending on money I suppose.
What a wonderful group effort! The James Persons stone is so pretty. Bet you were overjoyed to find both pieces and put them together. Awesome post!
How wonderful you were able to find the broken slabs. Love that rock wall!
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