Am I excited??? You be the Judge. Right now, I am sitting at the Rincon Public Library at Rincon GA, waiting for the rest of our group to arrive for the Salzburger Festival at Ebenezer...However, I just came from Wal-Mart where I had my film developed and printed...Wowwww! This past Tuesday, I arrived at Collins, MS at about 7:50AM, before the Courthouse had opened...I left Texas about 7:30PM on Monday Night...I went to see the 911 Coordinator and she gave me directions to several places and some maps. Then I went to check in at the local motel...And called Cousin Jessie Gieger, the only Gieger still living in Collins... He is a g-grandson of Lorenzo Dow Gieger, son of gg-Uncle Zachariah...Jessie was not there, so I called a Mr. R.C. Sanford and he said come on down here and I will take you to the site of Jessie and Tobitha's graves (our ggg-grandparents)...Now several people have been there and unable to find the graves because they are in the woods on a creek bank with no upright markers...slabs of concrete cover the graves. I followed Mr. Sanford in his pickup as he drove to a fence-row and said they are over there...He gave me a couple of other pointers, but said I haven't seen them in about 40 years... I climbed the six-foot barbed and net-wire fence and started walking...remember this is "woods" I mean, "real woods" with heavy undergrowth of briars and every vine you can imagine...I took a pair of cutters and a little spade like you plant flowers with in your garden...and started making my way into the under-growth. Soon I was out of sight of Mr. Sanford, so he went back to his house and left me to hunt...He didn't tell me to look out for the 'feral' Emus that might be in there, or the alligators. Anyway, I walked about 50 yards straight from the fence and it started to slope off down into the creek bed...I remembered that Cousin Edna's book said it had a little fence around it...but I saw no fence...in fact I saw nothing but briars and vines and limbs...I turned back to the right and started walking in that direction...I say walking, but it was really weaving in and out between trees and cutting my way along...even though it was shaded, it was HOT, about 102 deg...When I got to a clearing which was the power-line right of way, he had said I would be too far so I decided to head back to the fence-row. Still no graves...Now I had made a semi-circle and so I thought "well, go back to where you climbed over...Stupid" I started walking, and looking for my vehicle, thru the underbrush...and I thought "Lord, Help me find those graves!" Now mind you, the soil is the color of new concrete and the armadillos have burrowed everywhere. About ten more paces and on my right, I noticed something that looked like broken concrete, so I walked over and picked it up, hoping against hope that the slabs had not completely deteriorated. When I picked it up, I noticed another piece of concrete sticking out of the ground. I quickly started scraping with my hands and there it was, "Tobitha Martin, wife of Jessie Gieger..." I then started scraping furiously, and trying to find the others...there was about two inches of dirt and roots and leaves on top of them, but I found two...I was so exuberant, but knew that it was getting late and that I could not get them cleared without some more tools. I looked around, and there as Cousin Edna had said, was that barbed wire fence, on the ground and the 't' posts all bent and leaning over...I got down on my hands and knees looking for the fence and my car...and there I saw it, about 60 yards away at about 30 degrees from the fence...almost a straight line. I walked back to the fence, climbed over and drove to Mr. Sanford's house, telling him that I had to go buy a shovel and a broom and some chalk so I could make photos the next morning...after a little chat, Mrs. Sanford said the third grave was in a different line, and not side beside as we had thought...I told them I would be back in the morning... When I got to the Motel, Cousin Jessie called and said he would be over at 8:00AM with the shovel and broom, and everything we needed...I was so excited that I could hardly get to sleep...After breakfast, we stopped by the Auto supply and bought some florescent Orange paint, then went back over to the Sanford's...they were not there, so we let ourselves in to the pasture and drove down to where I had crawled over, the day before...We started looking and after about ten minutes, we spotted the site... Well, to end this story, Jessie and I cleaned off the grave covers and we even found the third one...I chalked and photographed them and now I have the proof...we painted the trees with the orange paint all the way out so that anyone else who is looking can find them, at least for a few years... Gerry P.S. Some of you will want these pictures, so I will try to post them in a few weeks... _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.