Exploring Almost Forgotten Gravesites in the Great State of Ohio

Dedicated to cemetery preservation in the great state of Ohio


"A cemetery may be considered as abandoned when all or practically all of the bodies have been Removed therefrom and no bodies have been buried therein for a great many years, and the cemetery has been so long neglected as entirely to lose its identity as such, and is no longer known, recognized and respected by the public as a cemetery. 1953 OAG 2978."

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Thursday, March 21st, 2024 - from 4:30pm. to 7:00p.m. - David Robertson will be present on the Ross County, Ohio Court House Steps to Discuss Floral Hills Memory Gardens and Answer Questions.


Sharing this March 18, 2024 news story.
"Information Session Offered on Still-Troubled Floral Hills Memory Gardens in Ross County" 
And
  You Tube video also from the "Scioto Post"
By 
Kevin Coleman 

Excerpt from the news story.:
"To help explain and publicize the situation, 
Robertson says he got approval to be
 on the steps of the Ross County Courthouse 
Thursday. 
He says he will be there alone, 
4:30 to 7pm on March 21st, 
to answer questions as best he can."
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Sunday, March 17, 2024

Clean Up Floral Hills Memory Gardens Most Recent Announcement for an upcoming public meeting at the Ross County, Ohio Court House - March 21 2024 - 4:30p.m. till 7:00p.m.

Sharing this announcement posted on the "Clean Up Floral Hills Memory Gardens" Facebook Page on March 17, 2024. 
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Sadly, although coming the closest ever to achieving an agreement with Huntington Township in Ross County to accept and assume responsibility and ownership of Floral Hills Memory Gardens, any agreement to do so fell apart before the end of 2023.  
Thus, leaving this Active and public cemetery in its decade+ long limbo that it has been stuck in through no fault of its own. 
This situation directly impacts lot owners of course and truly anyone who visits and cares about this cemetery!  
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There have been several posts per year appearing on this blog alone; as well as those by newspaper and TV reporters from many central Ohio news outlets about the plight of Floral Hills Memory Gardens in Ross County, Ohio bringing greater public awareness to this situation and alerting them that other cemeteries in Ohio could end up in the same or similar situation.
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This cemetery is now, in my estimation, Ohio's longest Abandoned yet Active Cemetery in the state - having no legal owner to maintain it or Register it with the State of Ohio for close to 13 years! 
This sad predicament should never happen to any Active Cemetery in Ohio. 
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"Anyone interested in a Public Meeting in an Auditorium complex with PowerPoint presentation to show what is happening with Your Cemetery?
This is the amount of paperwork filed with the Clerk of Courts since Dec 20th, 2023 (shown on the cemetery's Facebook Page) in an attempt to get $54,566.07 of Your Cemetery’s money.
I think the public needs to be aware of what is going on.
This needs to be Specifically in a Public forum with actual Discussions with the public and a truthful Question & Answer period.
Let those who know inform you…and you Will Not need a lawyer to be heard!
All money in the Trusts should only be allowed to go to Huntington Twp. so Your Cemetery has the best chance of Survival, Growth & Improvements."
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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Sharing a Call for Volunteers to help in Cuyahoga County to complete scanning projects of several types of cemetery records including W.P.A. Cemetery Plat Maps.

Sharing from Homer Taft of the Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio.:

"We have with volunteers through Monroe Street Cemetery Foundation completed scanning many record books of Monroe Street Cemetery, with over a Terabyte of data produced with a view to making maps, lot layouts, and all interment records publicly available soon.  

We have now obtained records for:

 Erie Street, Denison, and Brookmere Cemeteries, the other oldest Cemeteries, for scanning.  

These represent perhaps another 30-40 hours of volunteer time to scan.

Once these are completed, we can move on to some larger projects including.:

 Woodland, Harvard Grove, Alger, West Park, and Highland Park.  

There are also many other local cemeteries with records that could be scanned.

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In addition, we are working at obtaining scans of the fragile WPA maps of veteran graves at all Cuyahoga Cemeteries so they can be put on line.

Also, are discussing getting online access to all, including the oldest, Probate Court records that are a gold mine for genealogy.

If we try to do this with our first 8 volunteers who have been trained in the high speed, large format equipment at Cleveland Public Library, it will likely take many years, perhaps the lifetimes of the mostly retired who are helping.  

We could very much use help from another 16 or more.  

If we were to achieve even 20 hours a week of scanning, with average sessions of 4 hours and one volunteer session a month, we'd need 22 folks to do just the 8 Cleveland Cemeteries in one year.

There are also many tasks past scanning.  

These need to be put through an AI-OCR process to index and translate the records that requires at least one human eye on every resulting entry to assure accuracy and correct incorrect entries from the transcribed records.

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So we are asking for your help and for recruitment of folks you know who may be interested.  

With many more hands and eyes, we may be able to make these records available publicly in a year or so.  

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The first step is a training session on the equipment and records to know how to properly handle which takes about 2 hours for every group of up to 4 people at Cleveland Public Library.  

Then individuals schedule sessions with the large format scanner and continue the book being scanned until finished."

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Homer S. Taft
Monroe Street Cemetery Foundation
https://www.earlysettlers.org

The Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve
P.O. Box 39291
Solon, Ohio 44139
https://www.earlysettlers.org/contact-us.html