Learning about how to find our ancestors cemeteries a few weeks ago reminded me of a couple of experiences I have had with my ancestor’s graves. In 1990, I did a lot of research on my husband’s family. I found a lot of information about the McDonalds and Andrus’ and found that James Andrus married Laura Arrilla Altha Gibson and Manomas Lovina Gibson (sisters, in a polygamist marriage), whose parents were Geroge Washington Gibson and Mary Ann Sparks. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 29, 1847, but that was all I could find out about them until a February 2003 Ensign article entitled “The Mississippi Saints” confirmed that they came from Mississippi and were actually ahead of Brigham Young’s group in 1846. They were told to stay in Pueblo, Colorado for that winter and then started again in 1847 arriving in Salt Lake on July 29th, five days after Brigham Young. Shortly after seeing that article, I went to Zion’s National Park. When we left, we saw the sign for the ghost town of Grafton and decided to go see what was there because we knew that part of the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was filmed there. When we were leaving, we stopped at the cemetery where, front and center, were the graves of George Washington Gibson and his wife, Mary Ann Sparks with their birth and death dates.
Another experience happened about 10 years ago when a lady from Australia emailed me through Ancestry asking if I was related to Peter Robertson. I said yes, but which one. There is a Peter Robertson of five generations in a row in my grandpa’s family. She gave me his birthdate and I told her that he was my grandpa’s cousin. She told me that her father was Peter’s best friend, and she had some pictures that she wanted to send me. I knew that Peter died in 1917 and had assumed, because of his age, that he had died in the war, but I didn’t know where he died or the date. The three pictures were: 1) A picture of Peter and her dad, John Morton in their kilts, signing up to go into the service in WWI; 2) A picture of John Morton at Peter’s grave in Gaza, and 3) A picture of the headstone that had Peter Robertson’s birth and death date on his grave in Gaza. On the back of the pictures it said that Peter had died fighting in the Egyptian campaign.
– Jamey Harvey, consultant, Granite FamilySearch Center