Tombstone Tuesday ~ Pyles and McAlpins

Last week, I shared photographs of Sara Carter (Pyle) McAlpin and an abbreviated family tree showing how a Pyle brother and sister were married to a McAlpin sister and brother. 

All four are all buried next to each other in Evergreen Cemetery in Morristown, New Jersey.

Sara's stone:

Sara Pyle McAlpin

February 9, 1863

May 14, 1949

"Gentle Unto All....

Apt to Teach, Patient, in

Meekness Instructing."

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Pennsylvania Death Certificates and FindAGrave

I  have not blogged very much this month, and one of the (many) reasons is because I have been exploring the Pennsylvania Death Certificates (and census records) on Ancestry.com and finding memorials for these Pennsylvania relatives on FindAGrave.com. As I find or set up the memorials, I link them so if you go to one of the memorials, you can click through to parents, siblings, and children.

The hyperlinks for Samuel and Catherine below bring you to their FindAGrave memorials.

My third great grandfather, Samuel K. Hunter (d. 1863), and his wife, Catherine Carr (d. 1891), had nine children. Using the death certificates and exploring FindAGrave, I was able to fill in a few blanks about their children and grandchildren.

1) Mary J. Hunter was born about 1841 and died as Mary J. Babcox in 1870. I don't know who she married, but she had two daughters, Kate (1864-1868) and Elva (1866-????). Mother Mary and daughter Kate are buried in the Hunter family plot at Union Dale Cemetery.

James Hunter

2) James Hunter (1844-1902) is my second great grandfather, whom I have written about before. He married Mary Freeland and had ten children. He, his wife and some of their children have their own plot at Union Dale Cemetery.

3) John Kirk Hunter (1845-1921) died in Saegertown, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. He married Emma Bailey (1848-1926) and had three children. He was a firefighter and fire chief in Allegheny City. He, his wife, and his son are buried in Saegertown Cemetery.

4) Ann (or Anna) E. Hunter (1848-1878) is buried in the Hunter family plot at Union Dale Cemetery.

5) Susan E. Hunter (1850-1922) married William White and had two children. She is buried in Allegheny Cemetery, but not with her husband.

6) Isabella Hunter (1853-1918) married Albert S. Glenn (1852-1934). They had one daughter, Edith. All three are buried together at Union Dale Cemetery.

7) Emma Maria Hunter (1854-1871) died young and is buried in the Hunter family plot at Union Dale Cemetery.

8) Robert William Hunter (1856-1876) is also buried in the Union Dale Cemetery Hunter family plot.

9) Lillie D. Hunter (1858-1933), the last of these siblings to die, died just before her 75th birthday. She married James Wallace Thompson (1848-1924). They are buried together in Homewood Cemetery, along with their two sons.

And this is just one branch of my Allegheny, Pennsylvania, ancestors from my maternal grandmother's side.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Pittsburgh Burials at Uniondale Cemetery

As I have been learning where my ancestors are buried and entering memorials for them at Find A Grave, I recently realized that not only are all four of my maternal grandmother's grandparents buried at Uniondale Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but all eight of her great-grandparents are buried there as well. (Uniondale Cemetery, at 2200 Brighton Road, is located in the North Side, previously known as Allegheny City.)

In addition, there are many extended family members buried in these family lots.

I created a chart in Family Tree Maker showing the burial locations for these four generations of my maternal grandmother's family. I now see why my mother feels such a connection to Pittsburgh, although she hasn't lived there in decades.

To see their Find A Grave memorials, scroll to the very bottom of this page, where I have a Find A Grave Search box, and enter the surname of the family member whose memorial you would like to see.

Tuesday's Tip ~ FindAGrave and Linking Memorials

I have been a member of Find A Grave for several months. There is no charge to be a member. The description of Find A Grave at its website is as follows:

Find a Grave's mission is to find, record and present final disposition information from around the world as a virtual cemetery experience.
Memorial contributions to Find A Grave should fulfill that mission - registration of the final disposition. If the memorial contribution corresponds with only the main mission, then the memorial fulfills its purpose as part of Find A Grave's mission.
Find a Grave memorials may contain rich content including pictures, biographies and more specific information. Members can leave remembrances via ‘virtual flowers' on the memorials they visit, completing the virtual cemetery experience.
Find A Grave is a resource for anyone in finding the final disposition of family, friends, and ‘famous' individuals.

I have added memorials; I have had several memorials transferred to me (Lysle family in Pittsburgh); I have requested photographs of gravestones in cemeteries far from me; and I have taken photographs of gravestones in cemeteries local to me for others who live far from Massachusetts.

Just recently, with the discovery of my grandfather's obituary, indicating where he is buried, I have been working on linking my ancestors' memorials on FindAGrave. A list of my ancestors' memorials can be found at this link. There are also some memorials (Copeland relatives in Maine) which were set up by someone else, but I can still link to them. Some memorials have photographs of the gravestones and some do not; this depends on whether or not a photo request has been fulfilled.

For my paternal side, start at the memorial for my brother, Duncan Adsit Pyle, and click on the link for our father, Charles McAlpin Pyle, Jr. You then see links for my grandparents (who were divorced in 1933 and are buried with subsequent spouses; multiple spouses can be linked). And so on and so on. (If I've missed a link, let me know.)

On my mother's side, start at the memorial for my Aunt Caroline, and you can see links to her parents (my grandparents). And so on and so on.

This is a work in progress as I discover where ancestors are buried and obtain enough information to set up memorials and link family members properly. Linking family members in Find A Grave is a great way to follow migration patterns if family members have moved around the country.

Family members: let me know if I've made any errors or if you can provide me with additional information.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ McAlpin and Pyle Children

Find A Grave is an incredible resource! Thank you to Bob Collins, who took photographs of the Pyle Monument and the McAlpin Monument at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York in response to a recent request of mine. He also very kindly transcribed the engravings on the respective bases.

It is helpful to provide a potential Find A Grave volunteer with plot information, and Green-Wood Cemetery has much of its burial database online. When I searched on "Pyle" I found Charles (d. 1873), Esther (d. 1921) and James (d. 1900) at Lot 19670, Section 149.

Detail from Pyle Monument
Credit: Bob Collins

From the Pyle Monument and closeup here, we learn that in addition to great great grandfather James Pyle (1823 - 1900), other family members buried in this lot include his wife's sister, Harriet (Whitman) Bliss, one son who predeceased him, Charles Sumner (died at age 16 in 1873), and three young daughters who have never been mentioned in any materials that I've previous read:

Anna Elizabeth Pyle (May 29, 1859 - September 12, 1859)
Maria Louisa Pyle (July 16, 1861 - August 26, 1861)
Mary Isabel Pyle (August 21, 1864 - May 27, 1865)

And although James' wife Esther Abigail (Whitman) Pyle is buried here according to the Green-Wood Cemetery burial records, an inscription was never made on the stone, though there is space saved for it.

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When I searched the Green-Wood Cemetery's burial database for "McAlpin" I found David H. (d. 1901), John R. (d. 1893), Frances A. (d. 1870), and Joseph R. (d. 1888) at Lot 18024, Section 157.

Detail from
McAlpin Monument
Credit: Bob Collins

From the McAlpin Monument, we learn that in addition to great great grandfather David H. McAlpin (1816-1901), other family members buried in this lot include his first wife, Frances Adelaide McAlpin (d. 1870), his second wife, Adelia (Gardiner) McAlpin (d. 1891), his mother, Jane Hunter McAlpin (d. 1875), and four sons who predeceased him, only two of which I previously knew about:

Joseph Rose McAlpin (1853 - 1888)
John Randolph McAlpin (1870 - 1893)

The two who died young have sometimes been "combined" by previous researchers (see McAlpin(e) Genealogies 1730-1990: Alexander McAlpin of South Carolina and Georgia and His Descendants plus other McAlpin(e) Families of North America, by Doris McAlpin Russell, published by Gateway Press, Inc., Baltimore, in 1990, as well as in Ancestry.com online trees). In fact there were two sons who died young:

Douglas P. McAlpin (died September 4, 1847, age 1 year 3 months)
David H. McAlpin (died July 25, 1853, age 2 years 5 months)

This satisfies my curiosity about why there is only one son (Edwin A.) listed with David and Frances A. McAlpin in the 1850 U.S. Census.

Interestingly, David H. McAlpin's mother, Jane is buried here, yet his father is buried in Dutchess County, which I blogged about last fall. His third wife, Cordelia (Rose) (Shackelton) McAlpin died in August 1927 and is buried with her first husband, Judson Shackelton, who died in 1883, in the Rose family plot in Rose Hill Cemetery, in Matawan, New Jersey.

My descent from James Pyle and David Hunter McAlpin is through Pyle's son and McAlpin's daughter: James Tolman Pyle and Frances Adelaide McAlpin > Charles McAlpin Pyle > Charles McAlpin Pyle, Jr. > me.

Tombstone Tuesday is a daily blogging prompt from Geneabloggers, the genealogy community's resource for blogging. It is used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.