The Mad Genealogist

By Jake Gibson & Steve Centanni, Published June 17, 2010 on FOXNews.com

ARLINGTON, Va. — Several discarded headstones recently discovered in a creek bed near Arlington National Cemetery have left Department of Defense officials scrambling for answers.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell called the discovery “alarming and concerning.”

Pentagon officials as well as officials at the Arlington National Cemetery had no idea about the existence of the headstones until they were made aware by a Washington Post story.

Can someone please identify this cemetery. Below is the email I received

 Dear Correspondent,
While I was stationed at Fort Chaffee for basic training Oct 3 – 8 Dec, 1956, I remember seeing a cemetery that had a stone arch at the entrance. As I recall, it was located on the South side of the fort. Can you possibly help me to identify this cemetery?
With kind regards,
John T. Gerlosky, CWO W3 USA Retired

I received a email on my facebook page and decided to re-post it here in hopes that someone with more experience in African American research can help.

I ran across this on a rootsweb list and was posted by Nancy of http://www.thepastwhispers.com. I just enjoy seeing these old places, (some of which are now gone forever). Even if you don’t have ancestors from these places, the photos are just become fun to look at.

Lincoln County, MS:

• Vintage Views of Brookhaven MS - http://old-new-orleans.com/Brookhaven.html
• Residences of Old Brookhaven – http://old-new-orleans.com/Brookhaven_2.html
• Whitworth College Brookhaven MS Photos bet 1880-1900 -  http://old-new-orleans.com/MS_Whitworth_College.html
• Vintage Views of Lincoln County, MS -  http://old-new-orleans.com/Lincoln_County.html

Claiborne County, MS:

• Vintage Views of Port Gibson, MS -  http://old-new-orleans.com/Port_Gibson.html

Copiah County, MS:

Workers repairing an underground steam pipe at the University of South Carolina in Columbia found human bone fragments — believed to be the eery relics of a Civil War hospital that once treated injured soldiers fighting for both the North and the South.

“We don’t know what it is,” Richland County Coroner Gary Watts told South Carolina newspaper The State, adding that the fragments found range from a skull cap to half-inch pieces.

“It probably is Civil War remains, but we’re still going to do this as if it were a crime scene,” Watts told the paper.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson lambasted the four alleged “graveyard robbers” charged with digging up graves and dismembering bodies buried at a suburban Chicago cemetery in a moneymaking scheme.

The four cemetery workers are accused of taking cash payments from unsuspecting clients for plots of land, falsifying deeds, excavating existing graves and dumping the bones and remains in the back of the cemetery, authorities said at a news conference.

They would then allegedly bury the new corpses in the already-used graves at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill. Police called conditions at the historic cemetery “startling and revolting.”

A story from the Associated Press this morning….

MIAMI  —  Historians and archaeologists want to know who was buried in an apparently forgotten cemetery uncovered in a Miami construction site.

Construction crews uncovered bones, crumbled headstones and nails and metal handles from coffins in the site off Interstate 95. A search of the lot in April failed to uncover any names, records or documents detailing who had been buried there. Only two commercial maps from 1925 and 1936 label the site as a cemetery.

Some longtime residents say there was once an informal burial ground for blacks at the site. It’s at the edge of some of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods.

This letter was sent by one of my removed ancestors, Mrs, Ben Starling (Josephine Handley’s Mother) to Lillian Nichols McKeown, telling about her family’s experiences during the Civil War. This is more than likely a common story to most southern families during this time.

The treachery of war is horrible, and left scars untold. The years of 1861 to 1864 was not erased when I was born in 1870, and after I was old enopugh to remember, the privations told of to me, or where I could hear. I remember hearing father tell how it hurt him when he came home after the surrender of Civil War and his baby boy did not know him and was afraid of him, when he wanted to take him in his arms and embrace him.

I received an email today and am passing it along if anyone is interest:

Mountain Press is pleased to announce that we are offering a 15% discount on all Genealogy Books now through January 31, 2009.  In order to receive the discount, please just type in the coupon code JAN09 at checkout.  Be sure to type the code in the coupon code section and not the promotion code section in order for the discount to calculate correctly.  We have several new books which are listed below.  Our entire collection can be viewed at www.mountainpress.com.

Thank you, Mountain Press

You here the story sometimes how developers and County work crews plow over and cover up old cemeteries in the way. Stuff like that makes me mad but it doesnt really hit home. But today I received this email from a distant cousin (a decedent of Charles Wood):

I drove down Boone Road the other day, taking an alternate route home, and noticed that a few trees were being cut near the Wood Family cemetery.   The cemetery is back behind a house and not really visible from the road.