How do I get a flag on my relative's grave for Memorial Day?

“I recently found out that one of my relatives fought in the Civil War. How do I make sure that he gets a flag on his grave for Memorial Day?”

Our patron’s relative was not buried in Newton Falls, but we were able to easily locate the rules and regulations for the cemetery where they were buried on the internet. The rules stated that the Memorial Day flags were property of the township and would be displayed for “a reasonable time.” We decided that our most straightforward option would be to contact the township directly, so we called the cemetery sexton, who had listed his phone number on the website, and he was able to solve the problem. We also could have called the local chapter of the American Legion.

According to Holiday Symbols and Customs, edited by Sue Ellen Thompson, Memorial Day, first called “Decoration Day,” originated as a day to honor Civil War soldiers. The first official observance was in Waterloo, New York on May 5, 1866, though other towns were decorating soldiers’ graves before then, including women in Columbus, Mississippi, who gathered on April 25, 1866 to decorate the graves of both the Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.

The first nationwide Decoration Day was held by the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union Army veterans’ group, on May 30, 1868. As Union Army veterans were the first to mark the day, several southern states felt that it was only for them, so states instituted their own Confederate Memorial Days on different dates ranging from late  April to early June. This custom mostly ended after World War I, when the American Legion took over planning the holiday.

How do I find a specific gravesite?

“I’m looking for the grave of a family member. I know they’re buried in Newton Falls West but I’m not sure where. I also don’t remember when they died, but I think it was the early 2000s.”

There are a few popular websites for locating a specific gravesite, BillionGraves.com and FindAGrave.com. The information is provided by volunteers and can include photographs and transcriptions of the headstones, family photographs, and genealogical information. BillionGraves also uses GPS tagging to pinpoint the exact location of a grave within a cemetery, but the cemeteries in Newton Falls have not been added to that site.

Fortunately, however, they have almost all been added to FindAGrave by the dedicated volunteers of the Newton Township Cemetery Association. We selected Newton Falls West and typed in the name of our patron’s relative, which brought up a picture of their headstone along with information about their parents, spouse, and place of birth and death. (If our patron had not known the cemetery, we could have searched by name alone.)

Now that we had a little more information, we called the cemetery sexton and asked if he could look up where the grave was located. He was able to give us the lot number and grave number.

Our volunteer in the local history room can also access some cemetery records going back to the 1800s (though the records aren't comprehensive, and she does not have access to deeds). She is available most Wednesdays by appointment.

Can I get an obituary from 2000?

“I need a copy of an obituary that was in the Plain Dealer in 2000. Is there a way for me to get it?”

Most libraries with a genealogy or local history department have newspapers archived, and there’s often a index to help find exactly which issue to look in. Since our patron was looking for an obituary from the Plain Dealer, we checked Cleveland Public Library.

We searched the Cleveland News Index for the name of our patron’s family member and found the issue, section, and page that their obituary was on. We emailed this information to the Cleveland Public Library Center for Local and Global History, and they were able to email us a scanned copy of the obituary. If our patron had been looking for something older, the Plain Dealer also has an online archive containing all their issues from 1845-1991.

Different libraries have different newspapers. Here at Newton Falls, we keep old copies of the Bridge and bound editions of the Herald in our Local History Room. The Akron-Summit County Public Library has indexed issues of the Akron-Beacon Journal (though only obituaries, not articles, are indexed from 1940-1984). Reed Memorial Library has all of the Record Courier on microfilm. An index for the Tribune Chronicle obituaries can be found at http://www.wtcpl.org/index.php/obituary-index.html, and the Warren-Trumbull County Library Local History and Genealogy Center can assist with getting copies of the obituaries in question. The Genealogy and Local History Center at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County can access the Vindicator archives, though the pre-1920 indexes are incomplete which makes it more difficult to find information from that era. Finally, the McKinley Memorial Library has digitized local Niles newspapers, and they are available at http://mckinley.advantage-preservation.com/.

Of course, this is not a comprehensive list. Any patrons seeking an obituary (or any other information) are welcome to call the library and we will do our best to find it.