RESEARCH TRIPS : August 2 - 17, 2003 - Genealogy Trip

August 3
We begin by getting up early and heading out to Olney, IL, the town where I grew up. This was going to be our first overnight stop before heading further north, and will stay with my girlfriend Penni and her husband in Olney. Did you know this is the Home of the White Squirrels? (That doesn't include my mother and me.) On the way, we missed our first interstate to go "up north" and did a mini-tour of Memphis and got to see the Danny Thomas hospital when we turned around. We had a great visit with Penni and her family as well as a good home-cooked meal on the farm with steak, potatoes, salad, home-grown green beans, tomatoes, etc. It was a quick visit and we will be heading out in the morning. Penni and her husband collaborated on the best way to get to Champaign, IL, from the cornfields of southern Illinois and gave us the directions to Champaign, which was about 2.5 hours away.

August 4
We leave out from the "Penni and Tony" farm with the directions ambling through roads surrounded by cornfields to find the main road to the city of Champaign. Then we find out we really need to go the Urbana IL, and quickly recover and find our way to the place we really need to go. Upon our arrival in Urbana, we go to the courthouse and find some land records and then head on to the historical society. By now it is afternoon and we are making our way through all the information they have, which is alot. We find a few things of value, and they clue us in on where to get a room, which is right across the street, at the Abe Lincoln Hotel. Did you know ole Abe practiced law there? We get all settled in the room for the evening and then the bellboy calls and asks "did you leave your car door open?" I say "I don't think so". So I run down there and sure enough when I parked the car, I just jumped out and left the door wide open with some of our stuff in it. Nothing was missing so this time I closed and locked the door. Our journey is getting off to a great start...

August 5
We get up early (again) and head over to the Champaign County historical society to look up some more stuff, eat lunch, and head on to Danville, IL in Vermillion County. We go to the Courthouse (which is not that easy to find) and get some land records and head to the Historical Society which has alot of information. We decide we are done in that town and head off to Jackson, OH, to see how far we can get before nightfall. We end up driving all the way, arriving at night, got a motel room, and snuggled in for some sleep.

August 6
We are now officially in Jackson County, OH, in the big city of Jackson (that's a joke)! We get all our maps out to go find the cemeteries in the Welsh community in the Madison township. Since I was in the area in the Spring I was familiar with where we needed to go.

So our first stop was the Moriah church which was the first church started by the Welsh community who founded the area around 1818. They have a graveyard so we stop. We get our pads and cameras, and lo and behold, I shut the door and lock the keys in the car along with our purses, water, and cell phone. You have to imagine being in farmland in the middle of no where at a vacant church. We didn't panic! At least not yet. To make a long story short, a lady with her two kids drove by and stopped (actually I waved them down frantically) and they left and called their mechanic. She came back about 20 minutes later and gave us his name and told us he would be there in 20 minutes -- he was coming out from Jackson. Ever so thorough, I told her what we were doing and she knew some Dulaney's. She was great in making sure we got help. The guy arrived right on schedule, had us unlocked in 5 minutes, and didn't charge us a dime! He wouldn't take money! And, by the way, none of our ancient relatives were buried in that cemetery.

Here's Mom relaxing while we are waiting. I won't mention what Mom and I did behind the church while waiting during that hour. The parishioner's wouldn't appreciate it!

As you can possibly tell, there is no other farms around except the abandoned one across the road.

We jump back in the car and head on to the next cemetery stop at the Evans Cemetery, which is where Benjamin's son William's wife is buried -- Jane Jones Dulaney -- along with 3 of their children. She is the daughter of one of the founders written in history of the Welsh community in the early 1800's. He is also buried along with the rest of his family , but his grave and others are unmarked. The cemetery is located down a country road on a hillside on the left side of the road.

The tombstombs are all nestled in the line of trees and it looks a little eery. Wouldn't want to be out there at night. But the cemetery is maintained by a chapter in the city because it contains the graves of the early founders of the area, This is a picture of some of the graves. No one has been buried here past the late 1860's I believe. Several of the markers are knocked over/broken. It was so quiet and peaceful there, and no one arose from their grave -- thank goodness. Also I didn't lock my keys in the car there.

Here's the grouping that is William's family for Jane his wife, son Milton, and two daughters -- Sarah and Annis.

We head out to some more cemeteries -- don't have too much luck. But we do go to the Emory Cemetery on Sardis Road in Madison Township, Jackson County, OH. Here's the Emory Cemetery where we do find John Mossbarger, his wife, and one of his children. John is the brother of Chris, who married Anstis (Benjamin's daughter).

Believe it or not, as a side note, before we get to the Emory Cemetery on Sardis road, we stop to get something to drink at an Auto shop on Sardis road. We are still out in farm country and was pretty surprised to find a new, clean car garage in the middle of nowhere. I walk up to the Soda machine to get a couple of cokes and a lady says "are you the ones that locked your keys in the car?" I'm shocked and say nothing - not believing that news could travel that fast. She explains that it was her brother-in-law who was sent out from that shop we were at! Ha Ha!

We have finished for the day and head back to Jackson and spend several hours in the library before going back to the hotel for a good night's rest.

Continued...