Sharing from Spectrumnews1 in Columbus - Tuesday, May 26, 2026.:
This latest report provides the most up to the moment news for how this program is proceeding, thus updating details from earlier reports.:
"The Revolutionary War Veteran Graves Project is part of America 250-Ohio’s effort to identify the estimated 7,000 Revolutionary War veterans buried in Ohio.
At Obetz Cemetery, volunteer Matthew Lucas is one of the people helping track them down.
“With the ones I did yesterday, I’ve marked 716 graves and 34 different counties. 260 different cemeteries,” Lucas said.
The project launched last Memorial Day. Since then, project manager Krista Horrocks said more than 4,200 Revolutionary War veterans have been added to the live dashboard.
Monday marked the deadline for graves to be included in the project’s July 4 release, but Horrocks said the app will remain open so Ohioans can continue adding names after Memorial Day.
“The goal of the project is to document the gravesites of the estimated 7000 Revolutionary War veterans that are buried here in Ohio,” Horrocks said.
The dashboard does more than show where the graves are. It also helps document the condition of the markers, many of which have been worn down after more than 200 years.
“A lot of the early gravestones here in Ohio are made of marble or made of sandstone,” Horrocks said. “They just don’t hold up over time, you know, over 200-plus years when a lot of these veterans were buried, the gravesites and the gravestones, they can become illegible, they can become broken.”
For Lucas, the search is also personal.
He said there is a family story that one of his ancestors, possibly a sixth great-grandfather, fought in the Revolutionary War, but his family has never been able to prove it.
“There’s a rumor that somebody. It would be like a six-time great grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War. We’ve never been able to prove that,” Lucas said.
He hopes documenting graves across Ohio could help other families find missing pieces of their own history.
“When I first got into this, I thought, well, maybe by looking at these individuals, maybe I’ll find that missing piece that I’ve been looking for,” Lucas said. “If not, maybe by documenting some of these graves, somebody who else has been looking might be like, wait, that’s my five times great grandfather. I knew he was in Franklin County. I didn’t know where.”
Even after documenting hundreds of graves, Lucas said finding each one still means something.
“Part of it is relief because I finally found it, but I still get excited for any grave that I find,” Lucas said.
Project leaders say the goal is to preserve those names and stories before more markers become too damaged to read."
