Catholic Cemetery Records Online

The website for the Archdiocese of Newark (New Jersey) has placed on their website a free, searchable index of burials at eight Catholic cemeteries.  Included are:  Maryrest in Mahwah, Gate of Heaven in East Hanover, Holy Cross in North Arlington, Saint Gertrude in Colonia (not North Arlington), Holy Name in Jersey City, Christ the King in Franklin Lakes, and Holy Sepulchre in East Orange.  In addition, there are "open houses" at some of these cemeteries in September, October, and November.

This free service is in contrast to their usual $25 search fee.

Fee schedule for "genealogical research fee" as rcancem.org

You can search by last name without specifying a cemetery.  Listings appear for burials in the 1800s and 1900s along with a grave/plot number.  The database does not appear to be complete, as I was able to compare the website-generated burials with my findings at these cemeteries and found several names to be missing.

Grave for Bosset and Loihle children at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.

For some reason, the burials shown on the stone do not appear in the online index, but Catherine was listed in triplicate.

Cemetery records are invaluable resources in the pursuit of tracing a family's history.  It is understandable that cemeteries do not have the time or the staff to allocate to locating such records, which were often not kept in an organized and clean state.  I commend the cemeteries who are placing their records online for genealogical research.

Indexing Projects

The Italian Genealogical Group has indexed many records useful in researching New York City area family lines, such as vital records and naturalization records.  These indexes are free at their website.  I have used their death indexes and marriage indexes to locate many important dates and discover birth names for some ladies.

I have been given the opportunity to give back to this group by helping index naturalization records for New Jersey.  The typing part seems simple, but once this index is created and online, so many people will be aided in their research.

An example of the information that I am keying to help index New Jersey naturalization records
for The Italian Genealogical Group.

If you would like to participate in such a project, Ancestry has a World Archives Project where you can select from several different records.  You can also help index at FamilySearch.  It is so easy to click, click, click on a free database and find so much information within seconds, but please remember that all of the information you find was placed there through the efforts of someone else.

Organize

I proudly present a better organization of my genealogical papers and photographs.

These boxes are from the Stockholm collection available at The Container Store.  You can shop online if you are not fortunate enough to have a store near you.

Someday I will have a master list of the contents of these files, but for now, these boxes are far better than the towering piles I have been navigating.  Most of my newly acquired records never morph into a paper version.  I am able to shoot clear photos with my iPhone and libraries are increasingly offering scanners in lieu of photocopiers.

The amount of records becoming available is staggering.  You need to be organized to collect, process, and retain the information or you will waste time retracing your steps.

Rather than print out a grainy copy of this obituary from the Bayonne Times,
I snapped a picture with my iPhone and edited with Picasa by Google.
Unfortunately, I can't find the piece of paper where I was writing down the dates and page numbers.
It will turn up.  I can figure out the date of the paper by her death certificate.