How do you find a family name at cementary.In Bay County .can't seem to get answ

Question:

How do you find a family name at cementary.In Bay County .can't seem to get answaers?

I'm trying to find my grandmothers cementary plot where she was buried I say around the 1920s or so.She was buried at the oldest cementary, and I can't seem to get anywhere

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: If it's Bay County Michigan, I know it well. The oldest cemetery in the county is now buried under the parking lot of Visitation church in Bay City. It was originally called St. Joseph's cemetery and back in the 1950s there was a scandalous decision by the Diocese of Saginaw to "move" the bodies that were there from the 1850s-early 1900s. Most of the coffins had disintegrated and the bodies were never moved (though the Church won't admit it, there were affidavits by the two men hired to move them later that admitted they were only able to move a few of the bodies.) Visitation has a list of the bodies that were buried there and those that were moved went to Calvary cemetery in Kawkawlin. I believe Donna Hoff-Grambau who is the MIGenWeb coordinator for several counties in that area has a list of the people who were buried there.

In addition, there were a group a cemeteries on Ridge Rd just east of the hospital that were the next cemeteries built. The one right on the corner of Ridge and Tuscola is St. Stans and it's all Polish. Its records are at the St. Patricks cemetery office. Old St. Patricks was the second cemetery in the county and its records from the 1800s are a mess. The only thing you might have a chance of finding someone without a headstone anymore is to ask the sexton's office to let you look at the book of who bought the cemetery plots. They didn't keep records on everyone buried there until the early 1900s...which is a considerable period of time from when they first buried people in 1867. I know this one firsthand because it was a total fluke that I finally found a family that was buried there from 1867-1899. I was out there walking New St. Pats with a bunch of other volunteers (I moderate other genealogy websites in Michigan and joined them for the day). I knew one family that I was researching had been in Bay County since 1849 but never found any info on the wife's death except that she disappeared between the 1864 state census and the 1870 federal census. We all went into the sexton's office til the rain ended and I started chatting with the clerk. She very quietly pulled out this book and said, "Let's check in here". Sure enough, there were 10 plots bought by this family in 1867. They're on a corner of one of the drives and over time people kept hitting the headstones. They've all disintegrated and just a pile of stones still stand. But I learned a valuable lesson and hopefully you can find something from them.

If your family was Jewish, there's a tiny Jewish cemetery at M-15 and Ridge. I don't think anyone takes care of it anymore, but the headstones are in very good condition. There's also another little cemetary at M-15 and Ridge that goes back to the Civil War. Remember that it wasn't til the 1850s that Bay City was even a decent sized port town and it was really 4 different towns at that point. So anything from the Civil War is pretty early in the town's history.

The other cemeteries to check out are St. Valentines in Beaver Township. The priest there is very easy to approach and their records are in excellent order. I know the Bay Co Historical Society has been trying to transcribe them but don't know if that's happened yet. There's also St. Anne's in Linwood. I don't think any of the North Bay cemeteries are old enough for what you're looking for. The only other place might be the one out in Fisherville between Auburn and Midland. I don't remember its name, but do know it's at a Catholic parish.

Donna and Carol spearheaded several efforts to read headstones and if you visit the MIGenWeb site for Bay County you can find not only the readings, but also photos of many of the headstones.

I hope this helps. If you need any help I have several genealogy friends up there and would be more than happy to make introductions. The first would be Don Dolson from Essexville. He's the guru of all things early Bay County.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~mibay/...

*****After reading your post again, I had another thought. Contact the Bay County Clerk's office to find out the name of the cemetery where she was buried (it's on the bottom of her death certificate) and then contact the Sexton's office. They'll know where her plot should be. Or if it was St. Joseph's cemetery, contact the parish office at Visitation.