Digging Up Ancestors in Cambridge, Mass.
On a warmer late winter day, my husband and I went digging for ancestors in Cambridge, Mass. Cambridge is under a half hour drive for us so we didn’t have far to go.
We decided to visit the famous Mt. Auburn Cemetery as my recollection was that my grandfather was buried there. I remember my mother taking me to the grave, and my thinking how great that he was buried in a nationally famous cemetery. Well, it turned out that my memory was a little off, but not far off.
Before we started out, I did a little searching online for my grandfather, or any of his siblings or parents. I used Findagrave and the Mt. Auburn Cemetery website. I was surprised not to find anything for them, although there was a grave for some people with the same last name. Still, we thought it would be nice to get out of town and get some fresh air and sunshine while walking through the cemetery. I had more optimism than my husband about locating my grandfather.
Mt. Auburn Cemetery a local and national attraction
It was a Sunday afternoon and we discovered that a LOT of other people had decided it was a great day to get out and enjoy the outdoors by visiting the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. We were totally floored by the number of people who were walking through the cemetery, whether singles, couples, or family groups. Many appeared to be walking for the exercise, more than looking at the monuments and headstones. No dogs, bikes, or picnicking is allowed. A family that tried to picnic was asked by cemetery personnel to pack up.
If you think it strange to want to picnic there, Mt. Auburn is as much a park with statues and sculpture, as a cemetery. It’s fame is due to its design as the first ” garden or rural cemetery” with winding paths and small hills and clusters of trees and bushes. It’s atmosphere is more soothing than the usual row upon row of headstones. Many famous people, including Mary Baker Eddy, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Bulfinch, and the actor Edwin Booth, are buried or honored with memorials there.
Not Digging up ancestors in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass.
When you arrive at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, you quickly realize that there isn’t a formal parking lot. Visitors are directed to park to the side of the paths that have green lines, avoiding the grass. Near the entrance is the chapel, library, and Visitor’s Center within the chapel and public restrooms. Staff and volunteers are on hand from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Visitor’s Center to answer questions about finding a grave or other monuments. The attendant couldn’t find my grandfather, either, but she did give me a map and indicated where the grave was of the people with the same last name. It was in an area where people were buried around the time my grandfather died. She also gave me the email of the archivist if I wanted to ask for further help.
As we followed the map and walked the grounds, I soon realized that my idea of finding my grandfather by checking names on gravestones wasn’t practical. I had no idea how extensive the cemetery is. I just remember my mother and I at the grave of my grandfather, not how we got there. The graveyard in Essex, Mass. was much easier to explore. We stopped to look at some of the more striking sculptures and memorials. I took a few photos, but it turns out that Mt. Auburn Cemetery frowns on publishing them. The photos on the website are better, anyway. More about the memorials later.
We did find the grave and headstone of the people with the same last name, Dahlquist, but the headstone was carved with a “v” instead of a “u.” That is “Dahlqvist,” not “Dahlquist.”
More digging for ancestors in Cambridge, Mass.
As we walked along, we noticed that there was another cemetery along with a church, adjacent to Mt. Auburn, that was accessible just by connecting walkways. I later searched for the cemetery, and others in Cambridge. online to see if that’s where my grandfather was. No luck.
In the weeks following our visit to Mt. Auburn, I did more online research. I found mentions of my great-grandfather’s company and obituaries for family members on Newspapers.com. I mean, my great-grandparents and great-uncles lived in the Boston area and they had to be buried somewhere in Eastern Massachusetts. After several hours and days of searching, I found my Grandfather’s obituary. The thing was, it came up due to his last name, not his first. His obituary said “burial in Cambridge City Cemetery.” Bingo.
The woman at the Mt. Auburn Visitor’s Center had suggested that I contact the Cambridge Cemetery. She confirmed that those graves aren’t listed online. The Cambridge Cemetery is run by the Cambridge DPW. The automatic answering system didn’t have an extension for the Cemetery Dept., so I chose the option to leave a “non-urgent” message. Well, two weeks went by without a return call. The second time, I chose “0” and a pleasant live person connected me with the Cemetery Department voice mail. I left a message with my grandfather’s full name and date of burial. Within a few hours, a pleasant woman called me back with information where my grandfather was buried, and who was also in the plot, as well as information about another Carl H. Dahlquist, buried four decades earlier in another area.
Finally digging up ancestors in Cambridge, Mass.
About a month and a half after our first foray for digging up ancestors in Cambridge, Mass., we went back to the same area. The Cambridge Cemetery is just across the street from one side of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery at the corner of Mt. Auburn and Coolidge Streets. We were so close.
It was a mild early spring Sunday. Unlike the almost bustling atmosphere of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, the Cambridge Cemetery was deserted. There were a few cars out front, and one or two that we saw actually in the cemetery. The atmosphere was very different, and the land mostly flat, with some trees, but not a lot of large and striking sculptures or monuments. The cemetery was laid out with the more usual lines of headstones.
I had downloaded a map from the City of Cambridge website and highlighted where the graves are. They weren’t that far apart. After finding the road within the cemetery where we needed to be, we parked the car. The roads and sections have signs to help guide us.
There are also square stone markers with lot numbers. We were looking for Range 77, Grave 27. And, there it was, the gravestone, with Dahlquist on one side, and my great-grandfather, my grandfather and two of his three siblings.
When I saw the gravestone, with the name “Ruth” and that she died within a year of her birth, I remembered that my Mother said she was named for Grampa’s sister, who died young. And there is the verification.
While I didn’t remember the graveyard where my Grandfather was buried, I did remember that there were other people in the plot so that there was no room for my Grandmother when she died, over 10 years later. My Grandmother was cremated so my Mother sprinkled her ashes on the grave.
I took some wider photos of and near the gravestone in order to better find it next time and to share with my siblings.
Some advice about digging up ancestors in Cambridge, Mass. and anywhere
Write down what you and your family members know, or remember about family history in regards to burial.
Check on FindaGrave, Google, Ancestry.com, and newspapers.com, and genealogybank.com. Try different spellings or just the last name. For some reason, my Dahlquist ancestors weren’t on FindaGrave and my Grandfather’s first and last name didn’t come up in newspapers.com. It was only because I kept searching the last name that I finally found my Grandfather’s obituary.
Pick times to search online when you have an hour or so to devote to it. Look for clues in other family member’s obituaries. I was almost at the point of calling the funeral home named in my great-uncle’s obituary for information.
Just because you did, or didn’t find your ancestor on one site, or found some material, doesn’t mean you should give up. I found much more material on genealogybank.com than I did on other sites.
If you don’t want to, or can’t afford to pay for online searches, just sign up for a trial, or use a public library that has a subscription to such databases.
What advice do you have about digging up ancestors?
Please share your thoughts.
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