Friday, December 10, 2010
Washington County newspapers online
Great news for those of you wanting access to Washington County Newspapers. You can now find many scanned images of several of the old Washington papers at
The search function doesn't work well so you really have to look at each paper but in just one evening of looking, I was able to find 4 obituaries for people in my family tree and 7 more for the Beallsville Cemetery website - and that was just in Jan - June of 1960 ! I'm excited that I don't have to travel all the way to Washington PA to look through microfilm (I detest microfilm). Hope this helps !
Friday, August 6, 2010
Memory Medallions for tombstones
This is a very interesting article on technology called a Memory Medallion that can be attached to a tombstone, accessed by a smart phone. The bar code directs you to a website that is constructed for the particular individual and contains photos, histories and even videos of the person. What an interesting way to memorialize a person.
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/10218/1078084-455.stm
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/10218/1078084-455.stm
Sunday, July 25, 2010
more additions to the Beallsville website
Last night I finished posting the 1977 - 1981 name indexes. I also added about 50 more obituaries to the 730 that I had added last month. It is amazing how many of these I've been able to locate in the online newspaper database on Ancestry.com. If only they would digitize the Washington Observer Reporter newspaper, I'd be in business !
Another good resource for newspaper articles (and one that is free) is Google. Just go to the "news" tab and start your search. I have actually found quite a few there as well. Portions of old Pittsburgh Post Gazettes are available there.
I haven't had much time for genealogy research or blogging lately since I've been spending as much time on the Beallsville website as I can in an effort to finish it up. Now that I have all of the tombstone photos taken, I'd like to get them posted soon.
I have also started working on the next years of the name index. I almost have 1982 - 1984 transcribed and will be ready to add those to the indexes soon. The interment listings that I have scanned images of, stop at 1994 so there are only about 10 more years to go and that part will be completed.
Hope all of your summer research projoects are going well. Thanks again to everyone who is sending me photos, article, obituaries, etc for the site. Keep 'em coming ! They are great additions.
Another good resource for newspaper articles (and one that is free) is Google. Just go to the "news" tab and start your search. I have actually found quite a few there as well. Portions of old Pittsburgh Post Gazettes are available there.
I haven't had much time for genealogy research or blogging lately since I've been spending as much time on the Beallsville website as I can in an effort to finish it up. Now that I have all of the tombstone photos taken, I'd like to get them posted soon.
I have also started working on the next years of the name index. I almost have 1982 - 1984 transcribed and will be ready to add those to the indexes soon. The interment listings that I have scanned images of, stop at 1994 so there are only about 10 more years to go and that part will be completed.
Hope all of your summer research projoects are going well. Thanks again to everyone who is sending me photos, article, obituaries, etc for the site. Keep 'em coming ! They are great additions.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
new name index added to the Beallsville website
I am just getting ready to post the new name index for burials from 1975 - 1977. I haven't added any new indexes for quite a while. I still need to type up and organize the indexes from 1978 - 1994. That is where the indexes that I have stop.
I also added a few hundred more obituaries and still have a stack left to go. It keep finding things that I want to add, redo or improve on the site so it seems endless but I am making some progress.
Hoping to take another trip to the cemetery maybe next weekend if the weather cooperates to try to get some more mapping done and photographs taken.
Happy Fathers Day to all you dads out there - enjoy the day !
I also added a few hundred more obituaries and still have a stack left to go. It keep finding things that I want to add, redo or improve on the site so it seems endless but I am making some progress.
Hoping to take another trip to the cemetery maybe next weekend if the weather cooperates to try to get some more mapping done and photographs taken.
Happy Fathers Day to all you dads out there - enjoy the day !
Saturday, June 5, 2010
obituaries posted
Hi Everyone,
It has been awhile since I posted. I have discovered the Newspaper collection on Ancestry.com. I have been searching in the Morning Herald from Uniontown PA and the Charleroi Mail from Charleroi, PA. I have found almost 200 articles and obituaries connected with the people who are buried in Beallsville Cemetery. I have posted about half of them and will try to get to the other half in the next few days.
As I've been scanning these papers that go back to 1914, I have noticed that in almost every paper there used to be at least one plane crash, many, many car crashed, mine accidents (not surprising for the Washington PA area since there were so many mines.) I guess it just never occured to me how many people used to die in these types of accidents before the advent of the safety measures we have today. Some of the stories I've found are very sad but I hope that the addition of these to the website, helps shed some light on what life was like in this area all those years ago.
It has been awhile since I posted. I have discovered the Newspaper collection on Ancestry.com. I have been searching in the Morning Herald from Uniontown PA and the Charleroi Mail from Charleroi, PA. I have found almost 200 articles and obituaries connected with the people who are buried in Beallsville Cemetery. I have posted about half of them and will try to get to the other half in the next few days.
As I've been scanning these papers that go back to 1914, I have noticed that in almost every paper there used to be at least one plane crash, many, many car crashed, mine accidents (not surprising for the Washington PA area since there were so many mines.) I guess it just never occured to me how many people used to die in these types of accidents before the advent of the safety measures we have today. Some of the stories I've found are very sad but I hope that the addition of these to the website, helps shed some light on what life was like in this area all those years ago.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Washington County Veteran burial cemetery maps
I just posted about 159 maps for Washington county cemeteries that have veteran burial lists. These maps were originally created in the 1930s. Once at the website, www.beallsvillecemetery.org, scroll down on the left hand side to Washington County Cemetery list and Veteran Burials.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
New Facebook Group
I thought I'd try something new. I started a facebook group that might make it easier to communicate than this blog. I will still post things here as well but right now since the weather has turned nice, I've switched back to working on the cemetery website. I only have two more sections to map and photograph. Hoping to get those done before it gets really hot for the summer.
Facebook group
Facebook group
Monday, May 3, 2010
Q section of Beallsville Cemetery
I spent a few hours at Beallsville Cemetery a few weekends ago taking photos of the tombstones in the Q section. I have started to post these to the website. I am also finishing up the L section (which I think is one of the largest sections of the cemetery because it seems like it is taking me forever to get that section finished !) I have over 500 new photos to post so it will take me awhile.
Once these two sections are done I will only have 2 more to go. These are relatively small and are the newer sections of the cemetery.
I have also started going through online newspaper collections trying to find obituaries and articles for as many people buried in Beallsville as I can. Hoping to make a few more trips down there in the next few months to finish up the mapping and the photographing so I can concnetrate on getting everything on the website.
As a result, my blogging has suffered lately but I haven't forgotten about it. I have started a Facebook group ( the link is on the home page of the Beallsville Cemetery page (www.beallsvillecemetery.org). This blog is OK for posting things but didn't turn out to be the best vehicle for chatting and exchanging information with each other so I thought I'd try something new. We'll see how it goes.
Have a great summer !
Once these two sections are done I will only have 2 more to go. These are relatively small and are the newer sections of the cemetery.
I have also started going through online newspaper collections trying to find obituaries and articles for as many people buried in Beallsville as I can. Hoping to make a few more trips down there in the next few months to finish up the mapping and the photographing so I can concnetrate on getting everything on the website.
As a result, my blogging has suffered lately but I haven't forgotten about it. I have started a Facebook group ( the link is on the home page of the Beallsville Cemetery page (www.beallsvillecemetery.org). This blog is OK for posting things but didn't turn out to be the best vehicle for chatting and exchanging information with each other so I thought I'd try something new. We'll see how it goes.
Have a great summer !
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Centerville High School Championship Track Team 1916
Centerville High School Championship Track Team 1916
Heston Hill, Paul Grimes, Perry Hoatman, Bill Fisher, Lee Thistlethwaite, Ralph Weaver, Vaun Moffitt, Donald McCune
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Snowed in
Well, we have been snowed in since Saturday (it is now Wednesday night) so I have been able to get alot done on the Beallsville website. I updated the Washington County Death records Volume 2 and am up to the "S" names. I should be able to finish going through the list next week and be able to post the rest of the list soon after that.
I also uploaded a partial interment listing for Buckingham Cemetery along with the photos that I have of some of the tombstones.
I spent alot of time on updating existing pages in the website, making corrections, fixing broken links and connecting more of the information to individual personal pages (tombstone, interment listings, lot owner books, plotmaps, obituaries, etc) I'm hoping this makes things easier to locate.
I still have about 200 pages of Lot Owner Book 2 to rescan and upload. I lost the original jpg files for this book ! Fortunately I had hard copies that I can rescan and load. I am blocking out addresses and phone numbers on these pages however because they are more recent and I would like to protect living people's privacy. This is taking a bit more time so progress is slow.
Back to work tomorrow - snow days are over - even though the snow isn't over.
I also uploaded a partial interment listing for Buckingham Cemetery along with the photos that I have of some of the tombstones.
I spent alot of time on updating existing pages in the website, making corrections, fixing broken links and connecting more of the information to individual personal pages (tombstone, interment listings, lot owner books, plotmaps, obituaries, etc) I'm hoping this makes things easier to locate.
I still have about 200 pages of Lot Owner Book 2 to rescan and upload. I lost the original jpg files for this book ! Fortunately I had hard copies that I can rescan and load. I am blocking out addresses and phone numbers on these pages however because they are more recent and I would like to protect living people's privacy. This is taking a bit more time so progress is slow.
Back to work tomorrow - snow days are over - even though the snow isn't over.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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