Cemetery Geek

Cemetery Geek by John G. West

What is a “Cemetery Geek?”  In the last year or two I had to research this term, since the Evansville Courier & Press my city’s newspaper labeled me a Cemetery Geek on the front page of the Sunday edition.  I remember some years back that being any kind of geek was considered not the best label.  I had noticed that the stigma was becoming less significant in recent years.  I believe that this change was due to the popularity of computer geek’s who could save the day for you when something went wrong with your computer.  But, do people think positively about a cemetery geek?  Too many people still look at cemeteries as a negative place to visit or even talk about.

This is probably a good time to define what a “geek” actually is all about.  A geek is somewhat obsessive about their generally single subject like computers, science or even movie series like Star Trek or Dr. Who.  Most geeks are sociable and outgoing (these parts I seem to possess a large dose).  Geeks are generally of average intelligence, but become very knowledgeable within their geekdom.  I suppose that one reason I was concerned about being labeled as a geek was because a few people thought of me as a “nerd” in my youth.  A nerd really got a bad rap over the years.  Nerds are smart people who lack much of a social life. They often have very few friends. Nerds don't talk much, and don't expect others to talk much to them. They are usually nice people, but don't have the social skills to go out and meet new friends.  Actually, nerds are very smart, intelligent people.  This was probably why the other kids around me thought I was a nerd… I was just too darn smart!  I generally have never been accused of not talking!  In fact, I have always been accused of talking too much!  Tell me how can anyone talk too much?

So, I guess I could be a smart geek, but a cemetery geek?  I know I am obsessed with genealogy.  I have researched my family history for over 55 years.  I talk about genealogy, I present workshops about genealogy, I have worked with people to help them learn to document their history.  I spent many years working with the 4-H genealogy project in Indiana.  Call me a Genealogy Geek.

Of course while researching my family history, I have visited quite a few cemeteries.  I was talking about how many cemeteries have I actually walked around to study and photograph tombstones or searched for relatives, etc.  I was able to name 78 cemeteries without notes or thinking about it much (almost all had family buried there or I had other special connections).  I suspect several were forgotten at the time, I have thought about two others since that day.  I feel like I could say that I have been in at least 80-100 cemeteries.  To me, cemeteries are places of serenity and a place to think about life.  Each grave marker is a monument to the person it records.  Often a little history can become known by the marker or a group of markers.  There are many, many different types & shapes of these grave stones.  The statues,  carvings and ornate sculpturing are so beautiful like an outdoor art gallery.  OK, I am a “Cemetery Geek” – I admit it.  I cannot help it!

I am also a geek of many other pursuits, as well.  Are you a cemetery geek?  If you are, let’s talk about our passion.

I am also known as Indiana Bones, a cemetery geek!

Graves County, Kentucky

I have often wondered about Graves Co., KY that attracted some of Ben West's ancestors and some of my ancestors.  Ben's family were concentrated in the Logan & Simpson Co. area while my family were in Christian Co & western Todd Co.  But, for some reason about 1840 or so, some of the children of my direct ancestor Charles H. West removed to Graves County that was to the west of Christian County as can be seen in the following transcription of the 1848 indenture of Charles H. West (who died in 1845):

Christian Co., KY Deed Book 32, pp. 177-179

This Indenture made and entered into on the 26th. day of August in the year 1848 Between William E. West of the County of Christian & State of Kentucky, Moses Austin & his wife Aquilla Mahala late Aquilla Mahala West of the County of Weakley and State of Tennessee, Frederick F. Williams and Martha A. his wife late Martha A. West of the County of Henry and State of Tennessee, William Stroud and Mary S. his wife late Mary S. West of the County of Calloway & State of Kentucky, Charles B. West of Graves County Kentucky, Thomas A. West of Holt County Missouri and the following named children of Jesse West Dec'd. Viz Harmon R. S. W. West of Warren County Illinois, John M. West of Weakley County Tennessee, Amos S. West of Graves County Kentucky, William E. West and Sarah West of Todd County Kentucky and Susan C. West of Christian County Kentucky  Children and heirs of Charles West deceased of the first part and Orran A. West of the County of Christian and State of Kentucky of the second part.

Charles B. West & his nephew Amos S. West were in Graves County at the time of the above indenture.

In a great photo posted by Ben West on Nov. 27, 1999 on the West, Fike & Affiliate Families page of MyFamily.com shows the West family members of West Plains, Grave Co., KY.  Ben states: "The family members depicted in this photograph (taken Ca. 1903) are descendants of Amos West (1766-1819) and Frances Herndon of Sulphur Spring, Simpson County, Kentucky."

Simpson County is east of Christian Co. with Christian Co. being close to the middle of Simpson & Graves counties.  Here is some information that Ben West posted on MyFamily site sometime back for me on Amos S. West:

From the West/Fike MyFamily Web Site:  Ben West - Jan 5, 2003   Viewers | Reply to this item     John,

I appreciate your posting this information to the web site.   Since you mentioned Amos S. West as an heir of Jesse West, I thought that I would share some of my Graves and Calloway Counties, Kentucky research findings with you.

From CEMETERIES OF CALLOWAY COUNTY "HEART OF THE JACKSON PURCHASE" by Judith Ann Maupin, June 1981, P. O. Box 954, Murray, KY 42071:

pp. 158-159 -- Lassiter Cemetery

p. 158  West M. L., 1878 - - ____

p. 159  West S. M., 1876- -1905

West Amos S., June 18, 1821- - Feb. 6, 1904

West Sarah J., wife of A S, Jan. 13, 1835- - Jan. 26, 1919

West Benjamin, son of M L & S M, died Sept. 25, 1900, age 2, 19 days

West Samuel, Nov. 3-16, 1873

West Austin E., Sept. 8-18, 1877

West Sally, Jan. 12, 1876- - Dec. 12, 1911, no stone

From GRAVES COUNTY, KY. BIRTH RECORDS 1852 TO 1859 by Don Simmons, Simmons Historical Publications, P. O. Box 66, Melber, Ky. 42069, 1991:

p. 24  625 West, F. M. A. (m) Amos West and Mary Brown 3-22-1853

p. 39  1041 West, C. J. R. (m) A. West & M. A. Brown 4-30-1855

p. 46  1265 West, H. A. D. (m) A. West & M. A. Brown 5-30-1857

p. 74  2074 West, Mathew S.  Amos West & Mary Ann Brown 6-16-1859.

From GRAVES CO., KY NEWSPAPER GENEALOGICAL ABSTRACTS VOLUME 10, Simmons Historical Publications, Melber, Ky. 42069, 1984:

Thur. 2-25-1904

p. 10  Uncle Amos West, an old man of Calloway Co., died Sat. morning and was buried Sun. at the Lassiter Graveyard near Swan.   He died of paralysis.

Until Ben's family DNA matched my DNA (and that of Hal Beumer's cousin) we wondered, but did not know at all if our ancestors were related.  This blog was written by me to point out that these two branches of the West family lived in Graves County back in the 1800's.  Did they know that they were related?  Were they aware of a relationship when they came to Kentucky around 1800?

If you have some information to add to this blog, please post it to the comments for this blog or send to me directly at:  jgw.mylines@gmail.com  

Written & submitted by John G. West

West Family Given Names

West Family Given Names

Contributed by John G. West

I was reading over some of the research that has been conducted on our West family branches.   And I decided to look over some of my notes on families with the West surname that I have encountered over the last 30 plus years to check for any connections to these newly discovered branches.  One thing I discovered was that the West families that are related to us did not want to have many of the males given unusual names.  They really wanted names like Richard, William, John, Robert, James, Philip, with some named Charles.  But, the all time favorite seems to be Thomas!  Granted because they had so many sons that you can find some named Henry, Claibourne, Ignatius, Nathaniel, George, Samuel, Edward and a few more names common to the times, but there were very few exceptionally unusual names.

Often, in a particular small area, you can find many Thomas West all about the same age or several possible fathers & sons mixed in with a nephew or two.  Sorting all of these Thomas’s out is very difficult and often times easily confused in people’s research results.  This is why we, as researchers, need to be very careful not to assume “who is who” and their relationships.  Once assumptions are made, it becomes difficult to correct, especially over time.

By the time my grandfather came along less common names were being used for many of the boys.  My grandfather Warner West is an example with a less than common name among the hundreds of other West males in the area (although there were at least two other West’s with that name in Christian County, Kentucky).  Warner had a brother, Gaither who died at age 22 of an appendicitis attack.  Warner named his only son after his brother, but added a middle name – my father was named Gaither Glennis West.  Dad named his first born son (my older brother) Gaither Glennis West, II… who named his first son Gaither Glennis West, III. 

You may have noticed that in recent times the West family (at least my branch) strayed away from such common names and actually picked some rare ones.  However, they did not quite get it right, since they just made the more unusual names very common in the family!

The family called Dad, Glennis; my brother, Glen and my nephew, Glennie.  Glen did make an effort with giving his second son the name of Scott Wilhelm West.  Mom & Dad named me John Gregory West, how many Greg West or John West’s do you know?  They tried a little harder with my younger brother Donald Gene West!  But, what did I do with the names of my 3 sons?  Phillip, John & James… back to the common names!!!  My only grandson is named Evan West… going in the right direction.  Evan’s middle name is John – oh, well!

DNA Testing

FTDNA West Surname y-DNA Results

by John G. West (this article was previously published on the West, Fike and Affiliated Lines on the MyFamily.com web site and edited for this blog). 

I want to list some interesting facts about some of the results for the West Surname Project at FamilyTree DNA http://web.utk.edu/~corn/westdna/.   Our WEST surname ranks 115th in frequency in the U.S.  Because WEST is a geographic name, it was adopted by many unrelated individuals when surnames came into use.   In addition to the original adoption of surnames, new lines are created when a surname change occurs as a result of adoption, marriage, and other events.  Y-chromosome DNA gives us the ability to identify genetic relationships when the paper record has been lost.

357 males named West have their results posted in the FTDNA results with 117 unrelated lines (of these there are 38 groups with 2 or more individuals). There are 80 (if I counted correctly) of the 117 lines being individuals without any matches, yet!  A number of these 80 may not come from a West ancestor... meaning there was an adoption, name change or a "paternal mix-up." However, some will get matches and will become a group.

Our group is Group #5 (of the 38)... we currently have the most (slightly) with 20 participants matching. We are unique in that among most surnames, we have the value of 10 for marker #385a with few others having that value. Of the 38 groups in our West surname there are only 2 groups of the 38 and none of the unmatched that have a value of 10 for marker #385a. The other group is #27 with only 2 individuals that otherwise do not match our group. This means that there are only 22 of 357 that have that value of that marker in the West surname project!

Being the largest group with 20 participants, we are still only 5.6% of the total tested by the West name. This means that there is a 94.4% chance that if you meet someone by the name of West that they will not be related to you!  Of course, that is assuming that our DNA sampling is even remotely representative of all people named West. I will suggest that it is somewhat reliable to expect that most people you happen upon with the name West will not be related.

The fact that most people named WEST are not related to us, should encourage us to get as many people we meet with the WEST surname to take a y-DNA test. These results can become even more important since we can prove that they are not related and eliminate another line from our research. It will be a way to 'weed' out some of the Lord Delaware and other suspected, but un-related lines!

Hal Beumer and I corresponded for quite some time trying to connect his West family to mine… we finally decided that we could not find any documentation to prove a relationship and agreed to stop correspondence, at least to a time that we might find something new.  Several years later, Hal wanted me to take a y-DNA test to see if I matched with one of his West cousins.  I was really skeptical of the results and felt the cost was too much for me to speculate on this tool for genealogical research.  Hal talked me into taking the test to once and for all settle the question… were we related or not (we thought there might be a good chance that we were related). We were! His cousin and I matched.

As we can see, DNA testing can eliminate an unrelated West line or it can prove a relationship.  Then it is worth all of the time to document that relationship.  If you have not done a DNA test, please consider  taking a test to see who you match.