Tombstone Tuesday: Benjamin and Ruth Tallman

There is nothing quite like seeing your ancestor’s headstone in person.  It is one thing to know where a grave is and another thing to actually see it in person.  Standing next to the final resting place of your fifth great-grandparents can be quite awe-inspiring.

Last week, I shared some photos of David and Minerva Williams’ headstone and these photos of Benjamin and Ruth (Taylor) Tallman come from that same trip to Ohio.

Benjamin Tallman married Ruth Taylor in Burlington County New Jersey on December 21, 1815.  They lived there for a bit (it is where all of their children were born) before moving to Logan County, Ohio.

Benjamin and Ruth Tallman (along with several other Tallmans) are buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery.  This cemetery is located at the northwest corner of State Route 559 and Township Road 177 in Zane Township, Logan County, Ohio.  There apparently used to be a church to go along with this cemetery, though I am a bit sketchy on the details for this.  It is one of the things I am working on.

Luckily, the cemetery is on the smaller side so we didn’t spend hours searching for the right headstone.  After finding a few wrong Tallmans, we finally found Benjamin and Ruth.  The headstone stuck out quite tall (am I the only one who the appreciates the fact that the Tallmans have a tall headstone…lol) among a huge patch of some sort of lily.

We actually walked past the stone a couple of times because the writing was so faded on Ruth’s side.  Just goes to show that you should pay attention to all sides of a headstone.  Benjamin’s name was on the opposite side of the stone and the writing was in slightly better condition.

The dates were pretty much unreadable, though luckily we already knew them. Benjamin died November 21, 1842 and Ruth passed away on February 22, 1861.

The Tallman surname was not on Ruth’s side either, another reason we missed the stone the first time.

I am so glad that we got to visit this cemetery.  These headstones have been here for more than 150 years but, judging by the deterioration of the writing on these as well as the others nearby, I am not sure how much longer you will be able to make out the names.  Several other relatives headstones were cracked and laying on the ground.  It was sad to see, but I guess is part of life.

As I said before, there is nothing quite like standing next to your ancestor’s grave.  If you ever get the opportunity to visit the grave site of an ancestor, I highly recommend you take it.  And if you are there, take a moment to enjoy the silence and give thanks to the people who made it possible for you to be.

Headstone of David and Minerva Williams

While on our recent trip to Logan County, Ohio, my mother, grandmother, and I did a little cemetery wandering and were very excited to come across the headstone of David and Minerva (Ocheltree) Williams.  David and Minerva were the parents of Elinor Jane Williams who married Francis Austin Tallman.  The headstone was actually in the neighboring Champaign County in the Mount Tabor Church Cemetery.  This church is still standing, though from what I have gathered, it was given to the county and is not actively used anymore.

I had come across the possibility that David and Minerva were buried in this cemetery and was so glad to be able to verify this.

Mary E. Williams, second wife of David Williams

This headstone also provided us with some information.  We never knew the death dates of David and Minerva and because of headstone we now do.  We also found out that Minerva (Jane) died fairly young and that David remarried.  This is a very large stone with David’s information on the front, Minerva J. and Mary E. each on a side, and a bible verse inscribed on the back.  The Williams surname on the bottom was really cool looking and very intricate.  I don’t know if David Williams was wealthy or owned a lot of land, but this headstone was large and impressive and seems to me like it would have been quite expensive.

The Mount Tabor Cemetery was quite large so I am thankful for the rather large headstone.  It made the search a little easier.

Now, if only proving or disproving the theory that the land he owned in Ohio came from some Williams family member’s service during the Revolutionary War were as easy as finding his headstone.

I have many more photos of this headstone and the cemetery so if you have come across this article and are also related to David and Minerva, please feel free to contact me for them.

Genealogy Road Trip and Connecting to the Past

This is a post I wrote for my other blog (http://musingsfrommommyland.wordpress.com/) and now am sharing here since it concerns my genealogy.  The trip was taken in May to Logan County, Ohio to do some research on Tallmans, Williams’, and Ocheltrees.  I have lots of pictures of headstones and other documents so just contact me for a share.  I know I don’t use specific names in the post so just to clarify, we were specifically looking at stuff related to Benjamin Tallman and his wife Ruth Taylor, Mary Wade Tallman (Benjamin’s mother) Francis Austin Tallman (Benjamin’s son) and his wife Elinor Williams, David Williams and Minerva Jane Ocheltree (Elinor’s parents) and anything on any Ocheltree that may be the parents of Minerva.   Enjoy!

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I am still relatively new to genealogy, but one of the things I love most about it is the research.  This has always been what is appealing to me about history in general and I am glad to have found something that gives me my history fix in the midst of mommy duties.  During my recent trip to WV to visit my family there, my grandma, mom and I decided that we were going to take an overnight trip somewhere to work on genealogy.  We had a couple of options of places to visit within driving distance of my mom’s house, but in the end we went with the closest.  So we armed ourselves with lots of pens and notebooks, packed the kids off to my sister’s for a slumber party, and headed out to Logan County, Ohio.

Whatever I was expecting from this trip, it was so much more.  Now, we didn’t exactly find a wealth of new info or anything like that, but the experience itself was one that has me already chomping at the bit for our next excursion.  We visited cemeteries, scoured courthouse records, and invaded the local Genealogical Society and in the midst of our hunt, I realized the two most important things I would take away from this trip.

The first and the one I will be looking at for this post is a sense of connection to your past.  You can find information online, but there is nothing like seeing things associated with your ancestors first hand.  This goes for documents as well as things like headstones or the house in which they may have once lived.  I knew the date of my 3rd great-grandfather’s marriage.  I even knew that he was married in a double wedding with his sister.  But, to open the huge book at the courthouse and to see his and my 3rd great grandmother’s names in fading ink on a worn and fragile page listed directly below his sister’s name with the same marriage date from more than 160 years ago, that was something that has definitely stuck with me.  Now this may be just me (the woman with an obsession for old books), but touching, seeing, smelling, these old documents, this is what makes me feel connected to history.

Even more than marriage records, or wills, seeing the headstones of my ancestors connected me to my past like I hadn’t ever really been before.  We knew which cemetery they were buried in, but as we pulled up next to it, we were grateful that the cemetery wasn’t too large because we had no idea where exactly they were buried.  After some frustrating searching, we finally found the graves.  Now, my third great-grandfather and mother whose marriage we had found earlier, weren’t here.  They are in Missouri which is another trip all together, but his parents and their first child who died in infancy was.  And, as I stood next to the headstone of my fourth great-grandparents and put back together the cracked headstone of my fifth great-grandmother I was awed and amazed.  It isn’t the same as standing in front of a headstone of someone you actually knew or were close to.  You don’t mourn for your ancestors like you would a close loved one.  You just feel a bond and a realization that these people were the ones who came before me, who made it possible for me to be…well me.  Yes, I know I sound a bit fanciful, but the connection that existed in that moment was really amazing.  You almost don’t want to leave the cemetery because you know when you do, you lose a little of that feeling of closeness.

The internet has made genealogy so much easier to find out about your ancestors and your past.  You can find scanned documents and strangers can post pictures of family members graves for you to see.  And this is all great.  On an almost daily basis I am thankful for technology in regards to family history.  BUT, I am telling you, there is nothing like the connection you feel when you are up close and personal with the documents and things associated with an ancestor.  So if you were ever considering going on a genealogy road trip…DO IT!  It is definitely worth it!