Cemeteries Here and There

I spent some time this summer doing what I love to do - visiting cemeteries.  Each cemetery was different, but my favorite was the one where my elusive Wolstenholme relatives are buried.

The first cemetery we visited outside the area where I normally research was the Nashville City Cemetery, but you already know about that visit. The same day we drove to Franklin, Tennessee to see Carnton Plantation, the home of Carrie McGavock, about whom  The Widow of the South was written. This book told of the Battle of Franklin during the Civil War and Carrie's work in seeing that the many who died there were identified and buried properly.  I had a more personal reason to want to visit there. Carrie's husband, John McGavock, had an ancestor who married into my Bostick family and it was fun to think that this distant branch of my family may have visited Carnton Plantation.

A short walk from the house are two cemeteries - the McGavock Family Cemetery and the Confederate Cemetery, the burial place of so many men who lost their lives during the battle in 1864.

Confederate Cemetery

On grounds of Carnton Plantation

On this same trip, we also visited Charleston, South Carolina and enjoyed touring the Circular Congregational Churchyard, located on Meeting Street in downtown Charleston. It is the city's oldest cemetery and contains about 150 tombstones from before the American Revolution.

Circular Congregational Churchyard

Charleston, South Carolina

Mrs. Desire Peronneau, 1740

As much as I loved visiting the above cemeteries, I was thrilled to visit Oakwood Cemetery in Milan, Gibson County, Tennessee earlier this month. I have been researching my Wolstenholme family for some time and have found them to be very elusive. You may remember them from my blog  Here and Here   Early one very hot and humid morning we headed south. After a largely unsuccessful visit to the courthouse in Trenton, we drove a few miles to the cemetery in Milan.  There is no cemetery office or map or anything to identify where people are buried. Find A Grave lists the plot where this family is buried, but there was no way to reference that plot at the cemetery. Nevertheless, we walked until we found it. My family really does exist!

Wolstenholme Family Plot

Oakwood Cemetery, Milan, Tennessee

Henry F. Wolstenholme

My Great-Great-Uncle

Elizabeth "Bettie" Wolstenholme

Sister of Henry F. Wolstenholme

My Great-Great-Aunt

All in all, it has been a successful summer and, if the weather holds, more cemetery visits are possible.

Published 22 September 2014, Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog,  http://wkygenealogy.blog.spot.com/