What is the oddest thing that has happened to while cemetery hunting?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tara Pfarner on July 11, 2009 at 12:17pm

Oooh, I got chills reading this! There are some cemeteries that I just kind of feel "at home" in, like the connection to those people is very real.

Permalink Reply by Luanne Kenney Shaw on July 21, 2009 at 3:14pm

My husband & I have that "at home" feeling at most cemeteries. We have had some "your not going to find anyone you are looking for here" feelings at a few. Many times we have given up looking for a stone and once my husband said "Ok if you want to be found let us know because we are leaving" and we immediately found the stone. So now we announce when we are leaving and I always say Thank You when I find what I am looking for.

Permalink Reply by Gus Marsh on July 11, 2009 at 2:17pm

About 4 months ago my wife, her cousin and me were in a very large cemetery in Philadelphia, PA. We arrived about 3:00 p.m. and started looking for the "Skalski" head stone. After about 30 minutes, we located the stone and while talking we noticed another "Skalski" stone about 30 feet away. We did not have a pencil or paper so each of us made mental notes of the names, dates, etc. At 4:35 p.m. we went to leave only to find out that the main gate had been locked. We then drove to the office and it was closed, with no emergency numbers or anything else listed. We then drove to the east gate, south gate, west gate with no luck. Then we went back to the main gate and after 15-20 minutes, my wife called 911. The operator took all of our information and said that the Philadelphia police would call in about 15-20 minutes. In 20 minutes, her cell phone rang and the police asked us where our car was and which way were facing. They instructed us to turn around, drive past the office, then turn right, take the half circle, then a left and asked her if she could see a gate. She said yes and I jumped out of the car, pulled up two metal stakes and the gate opened. The driver of the car drove out like she was on fire. After that I had to buy everyone a stiff drink. You can bet the next time I go to a cemetery, I will read the closing times very carefully.

Permalink Reply by Ruby Coleman on July 11, 2009 at 3:07pm

A few years ago I was in a fairly large cemetery in Iowa, looking for one grave. I had a fairly good idea of where it was located after stopping by the record keeper's house. Driving my SUV down a rather narrow road I soon realized that I was just about out of the area where the grave was located. Suddenly my tire struck something. I stopped, got out and saw that I had driven over a low-lying tombstone. Having done the stone no harm or my tire, I said to the tombstone, "Didn't your mother tell you to not play in the road?" Just as I turned from that stone, I glanced up only to see the stone that I needed to find. Maybe he was playing in the road so I'd find it!

Permalink Reply by Diane Mitchell on July 11, 2009 at 8:56pm

A couple of months ago, a friend and I were taking pictures at the local cemetery. I was under a tree getting ready to take a picture of a small child's headstone and my friend was about 10 feet away. I was concentrating so hard on getting the shot of the headstone that I didn't hear the rustling in the tree and all of a sudden this bird started squacking at me like I was invading his privacy. My friend started laughing so hard and told me that I got a look on my face like that child was going to reach right up and grab me by the ankle. That definitely gave me the start of my life.
If that wasn't bad enough, a couple weeks later, I was in the same cemetery. This time I was in the very back of the cemetery getting ready to take some shots. When I parked my car and got out I noticed there was a cat not to far from where I parked. I got out and managed to take a couple of headstone shots, when out of the blue this cat starts chasing me around the cemetery like I was lunch. Needless to say, I didn't get too many shots that day.

Permalink Reply by Gene Davies on July 11, 2009 at 10:37pm

Well today we were reviewing a grave with a old old fence around grave site one of the old metal kind (nice one) and a black snake starting reaching up for a tree branch and went up into the tree above us and just coiled around the limb

Permalink Reply by Cyndi Beane Henry on July 12, 2009 at 9:50am

Years ago I visited the family cemetery just before Memorial Day weekend to take some flowers to my grandparents and great-grandparents graves. This cemetery is located on a steep hillside in Monroe Co., WV. I had just placed flowers on my grandparents grave and glanced up the hill toward my great-grandparents grave. I saw a woman dressed all in black from head to toe. Her hair was dark and pulled back in a severe bun. And although she didn't smile at me, she waved as though she knew me. I was with my first husband then, and he and I both waved back.
He asked me who that woman was as we began to move up the hillside. I told him I'd had no idea. [This was during the '70's, and we didn't think anything about the long dress. It was the time of the "maxi-dress".]
I was concentrating on the climb up the hill when my husband asked me where the woman went to. I looked up, and she was gone. There hadn't been another car at the little cemetery, and as high up on the hill as we were, you could see anyone approaching, or exiting the cemetery, with no difficulty. We never did see where she had gone to.
The strange thing was, when we got to my great-grandparents grave [they share a tombstone], my husband looked at me and said: "You know where we're standing don't you?"
We were standing at almost the exact spot where the woman in black had been standing.
Years later I got to see the only known picture of my great-grandmother, Margaret Perkins Bean. Imagine the chills I got when I could swear it was the same woman we'd seen in the cemetery!
I have been known in the past few years to sit right down on the grave and talk to Margaret. I've had a bond with her ever since. And she died more than 60-years before I was ever born.

Permalink Reply by Tara Pfarner on July 12, 2009 at 11:47am

What great stories! I love to hear these types of tales.
At one local cemetery, every time I go there, there is a coin on a particular (very old) stone. It always in the same spot, year after year, even through wind and rain and snow. I've often wondered if it's some kind of sign between this world and the next.
Several years ago, I was taking photos of many old family graves, and my husband and I both got the sense that we weren't alone. I felt a connection of sorts there as well. Later, after having the pictures developed (this was in the days of film!), I noticed white whispy spots on three of the pictures. My ancestors letting me know that we were indeed not alone? I don't know, but I like to think so!

Permalink Reply by fizzbomb on July 13, 2009 at 6:25am

Nothing too weird:
1. My then-fiance' (later husband) and I stopped at the cemetery where most of his family is buried as I wanted to verify some information on a relative's grave. It was a warm day in late March. As I stepped around to look at the back of the stone, I heard the distinctive "bzzzz" of a rattlesnake. My husband always said I jumped completely over the stone but I don't believe him. ;-) The snake was coiled on the grave of the relative's husband, who has not a nice person. Mr. Snake was dispatched to the hereafter with a well-placed shot.
2. This past spring I was fulfilling a photo request and had to stand under a tree. All of a sudden I felt something warm on my ear...yeah, bird droppings.

Permalink Reply by Mary Trogg on July 13, 2009 at 8:27am

I had just rolled ionto town on my very first genealogy field trip. It was late in the afternoon, but I couldn't resist exploring the town before I went to my motel so I let the car take me for a ride. Through town, left at a residential street, up the hill and there is was. The cemetery where all my relatives were buried. I drove through the gates, picked a lane and there was Uncle Fred! It took a little longer to find Great-Grandma. I think she didn't want to make it too easy for me.

Permalink Reply by Terri Sprague on July 13, 2009 at 6:49pm

In 1999, my son and I had gone to the cemetery to see where my Great Grandfather was buried. We had stopped at the Mortuary (it was a very small town!) and found out where the cemetery was and where his grave site was. We looked over the whole cemetery and was not able to find his headstone. I was rather upset with my Grandmother for getting involved with someone who didn't even put a headstone on his father's grave!

We then proceeded to the cemetery where my Grandma was buried. I was rather angry and telling her that I had thought her taste was better than that! I could feel her arms around me and heard her voice tell me "It's ok. He's not there." I wasn't sure what to make of it. I was pretty upset and thought I was talking to myself (although what was said didn't make sense to me).

When my Mom talked to her Father's Widow a few years later (my Mom's parents had never married each other, and she had never met her father or his family, that she remembered). Mary Jane, his Widow, after Mom told her what we hadn't found at the cemetery, told her that Council (my Mom's Dad) had had his Father re-buried somewhere else when he was able to afford it.

So, I've come to believe that it really was my Grandma telling me "It's ok. He's not there." The hug was nice, too.

Permalink Reply by Donna Kay Railsback Braly on July 14, 2009 at 1:30pm

At the edge of the cornfield in Norton County, KS, then belonging to my Civil War ancestor, William H. Railsback, is a tiny fenced off area, no tombstones showing, no sign.
Here he buried his first wife and two sons. They have pins and needles burrs and just walking a few feet I was covered in them. Ouch!
When I stepped in the cemetery, there were lots of snake or mouse holes. The ground moved and I left. I didn't want to get that close to my ancestors.
Hubby said he'd go back with me and help me figure out if there were tombstones sometime.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page