Mineral Spring Cemetery, Pawtucket, Rhode Island

I have many ancestors buried in this cemetery but somehow I had never visited it on my other trips back to Rhode Island. I think I have always  been side-tracked by Moshassuck Cemetery in Central Falls, and Oak Grove Cemetery in Pawtucket. Since my Dad's family has been in this part of Rhode Island forever, I have many family burials in all these cemeteries. And from reading the area censuses line by line looking for family members (back before the censuses were all indexed and on-line), I recognize so many of the names on the non-family graves!

Mineral Spring Cemetery is not in the best of shape, especially compared to nearby Oak Grove and Moshassuck Cemeteries. Many of the gravestones have been toppled, and over the years, a lot of them have become buried.

When I first visited this cemetery a few days ago, I ran into Ken Postle, a volunteer who has received a grant to hire neighborhood teens to unearth and reset some of these tombstones. I think he said he has the teens for a total of 1000 man-hours. It looked like the group was doing great work and have located many buried stones, and have started re-setting them. Great job, Ken! and kudos to you for organizing this effort!

Re-set Gravestones at Mineral Spring Cemetery

Both Moshassuck Cemetery and Mineral Spring Cemetery have a special section of the graveyard dedicated to the Rhode Island men who served in the Civil War. Both cemeteries have Civil War gravestones in other parts of the cemetery as well.

Civil War Memorial at Mineral Spring Cemetery

Unfortunately, most of the Civil War grave markers are buried too deeply in the ground to read the inscriptions.

I started taking pictures in the back left corner of the cemetery for www.BillionGraves.com (I will also post the pictures on www.findagrave.com ) but had to stop when a sudden rainstorm started. I only got about 20 photos taken, but one of them was of Zophar Skinner's gravestone. This Zophar was my g-g-g-grandfather. His son, Zophar, was the Zophar this blog was named for - I had previously photographed his grave at Moshassuck Cemetery.

I met cousins!

I am exhausted.

Since I left home last week, I have driven almost 900 miles (from NJ to PA to NY to RI to MA) and met up with one first cousin once removed and one second cousin  (Skinner), one Aunt (Grant),  four third cousins and two third cousins once removed (descendants of Cassie Zeiler),  two second cousins and one second cousin once removed (Foster), and three first cousins once removed and one second cousin (Blackmar),. I've also spent the most part of three days in county and town courthouses (Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania, and Central Falls and Cumberland, Rhode Island) and visited three cemeteries in Pennsylvania, and three in Rhode Island. I've taken 133 pictures, and gone through five sets of batteries for my Flip-Pal scanner (which goes through batteries much quicker in hot weather). And most of the time it's been over 90 degrees (101 degrees in Providence today!).

I loved seeing all these cousins and I thank them all for sharing their time and information with me.

I have many vital records, cemetery records, wills and deeds, town histories, compiled family records, and lots of scanned copies of documents and photos. It will take me weeks to sort through all the information I've received and get it all into my database! I will also make copies of it all and distribute the information to these cousins.

Perhaps the most intriguing discovery so far is my g-g-g-grandfather Ernest Lord Mellor's death record at the Cumberland Town Hall in Cumberland, Rhode Island. Cause of death: Gun Shot.

I think I have a mystery to investigate!

success

The new domain is up and going. Thanks to a blogger tech who helped me figure out the problem (Internet Explorer was the problem - It all works fine on Chrome). Soon I plan to have more content at www.fromatozophar.com, including a pedigree chart. I'll keep you posted!

Veith siblings

On Monday, I am planning to meet up with some cousins who are also descendants of  Hannah Zeiler and Gottlieb Veith. I am descended their son, Harold, and my 2nd cousin is descended from Harold's sister, Esther.

Children of Gottlieb Veith and Hannah Zeiler, Hollisterville, Pennsylvania

My grandfather, Harold Theodore Veith is the man on the right and his brother Edwin is on the left (in the cap). The 3 daughters are Carrie, Esther, and Edna but I'm not sure which is which. I'm hoping my cousin might know!

Back to old web address

Despite some help, I could not get blogger redirected to my own domain and thus, I am back to posting on blogspot for the time being. I hope to have a new post up later today. Right now I am packing for my trip to see all my cousins - some newly found and some unseen for 40 years!

New web address

I'm in the process of moving this blog to my own domain and it looks like the process is not as smooth as Blogger promised it will be. Even I can't see my own blog.

I hope to get it fixed as soon as I can and I'll be back!

Third cousin meet-up

I'll be traveling back east soon to northeastern Pennsylvania to meet up with at least 2, and possibly 3 or 4 third cousins. We are all descended from the children of Joseph Zeiler and Anna Margaretha (Margaret) Mack of Jefferson Twp, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.

According to the 1900 census, Joseph Zeiler and Margaret Mack married around 1856. This census indicates they had 8 children but only 5 were living in 1900. These children are:

Mary Zeiler born August 1857
Karolina (Carrie) Zeiler born 28 June 1859
Casoline (Cassie) Zeiler born July 1863
Theodore A. Zeiler born Dec 1865
Hannah Zeiler born 21 May 1869 (my great-grandmother)

All these children, (except Karolina who had no children of her own) have living descendants and some of us will be meeting for the first time. It looks like we might have at least one descendent from each branch! I'm hoping that we can all exchange photos, documents, family records and family stories.