By Jolene Farley
By next summer the Minnesota Genealogical Society hopes to have a directory of every cemetery in Minnesota, broken down by county and detailing whom to contact for information on who is buried in each plot.
The directory would compile all information in one place, making genealogical research much easier for family members and others.
Researchers would know who to contact to find out if they have an ancestor buried in a particular region of Minnesota by looking up the county in the directory.
The task of collecting all the needed information began last summer with volunteers from around the state dividing up counties.
After seeing a request for volunteers online, Genealogical Society member Marcia Paulsen, Montrose, agreed to compile the information for Rock, Pipestone, Nobles, Martin, Jackson, Cottonwood, Murray and Watonwan counties, all located in southwest Minnesota.
Paulsen spent her vacation collecting information on these counties. Since her hometown is Round Lake, she was particularly interested in Nobles County and Jackson County.
Paulsen had previously completed several "transcriptions" of cemeteries in these counties. A transcription (an official genealogical term) is to gather information on who is buried in the plots. The information must be submitted to the State Historical Society for publication.
Of her eight counties, Rock County has the least amount of previous genealogical work done, according to Paulsen.
Many counties sent teams out in the 1970s and '80s to cemeteries to record those buried in the plots located throughout the county. That extensive research was never done in Rock County, according to Paulsen.
Paulsen was able to locate 25 cemeteries in Rock County from a list prepared as a Work in Progress Administration project in the 1930s, sponsored by the Roosevelt administration during the Depression.
Although Rock County has lagged behind other counties, Paulsen's visit last summer spurred Rock County Historical Society volunteers Betty Mann and Naidine Aanenson to start some investigating of their own.
"We are trying to do some investigating, but it takes a lot of time," said Mann. "We hope to continue this in the spring when the weather gets a little warmer."
Mann and Aanenson have contacted some churches asking for a listing of people buried in their cemetery.
Mann is particularly interested in Rose Dell Cemetery, located northwest of Luverne, and completed the listing of names from the headstones in the cemetery.
"So many of them were children. I would like to pursue this further to see if there was an epidemic at that particular time or if the adult stones are simply missing."
If Mann and Aanenson are successful in transcribing all the cemeteries in Rock County, the Rock County Historical Society will be listed as the contact in the directory.
As many as 20 Minnesota counties currently have no volunteers working on gathering the information. Only one county has presented all the needed information to the State Historical Society.
Paulsen asks anyone with any information, such as books detailing who is buried in any cemeteries, to contact the Rock County Historical Society.
"There are many cemeteries across the state that are abandoned," said Paulsen. "The church is gone and the township or a neighbor takes care of it."
Volunteers realize that some cemeteries may be private burial plots with all family members of the deceased long gone.
This makes the chance of tracking down any genealogical information unlikely, but they want to ensure the information they are able to find is on file with the Rock County Historical Society and the Minnesota Genealogical Society.