6 Heads Are Better Than One

A group of us took our first walk through St. Patrick's Cemetery this morning assessing how to approach the daunting task before us.  The problem is this, our database of Irish Civil War veterans has about 600-700 names.  Many of these contain lot numbers.  My initial thought was we'd walk through identify the names on the list, have lunch, and go home.  Reality check!  Within the first few minutes we found stones that are not on the list.   Hmmm, I thought this list was pretty complete.  Those who have visited St. Pat's will know that there are few if any records dating from this period, driving anyone doing genealogy a bit crazy. 

Luckily I am smart enough to surround myself with people with talents greater than my own.  Donna has been working with Mercy Way and has a mission of identifying the resting places of Irish immigrants who came to Lowell and have no marker.  Eileen is our tech guru, a self proclaimed geek.  She stood by graves and used GPS to mark locations.  Mo has collected info in Civil War vets and has done extensive work in St. Pat's.  Steve is with Sons of the Union Civil War Veteran's, a national organization dedicated to collecting the resting places of CW vets.  Dick not only knows CW history, but thankfully has an index file in his head and gave much good advice on how to proceed with such a task.

We have short term goals and long term.  Right now it's a lot of leg work, then a lot of paper work.  If you're interested, please drop a line.  We need to hear if you think our efforts are worthwhile, and your thoughts on maybe where to go.  Again, this year's cemetery tour will be interesting and taking new routes we haven't explored before.