This is an interesting and disturbing subject. Yes, governments and civil agencies are often cavalier about older cemeteries and it can be difficult to stop them once they get started. Perhaps someone can advise me on this one. Franklin Cemetery, in the village of Franklin, the township must be Southfield or Bloomfield I think. This is a pioneer cemetery, and I'm sure the local historical groups are going to work to protect it. But it also happens to be the burial place of a good number of my direct ancestors. It doesn't appear on most lists of active cemeteries, but there are still recent burials (my own father just ten years ago, for instance.) Who has the records? How can I establish 'ownership' or rights to remaining family plots there? My father, his parents, most of his siblings, and two prior generations of his maternal line are all buried there. Gary Lee Phillips (now residing in Illinois, but quite likely the oldest and nearest living descendant of all those folks)

I would try contacting the Village of Franklin and find out who has the records for this cemetery and who does the burials when needed. Each Cemetery as I understand it has a board to which people can write to and or converse with about the plots in the cemetery. I know that in Redford Michigan the old Redford Cemetery (Bell Branch) has a Cemetery Association and they are responsible for keeping the records and the info on the cemetery up to date. When someone dies who has a plot in any old cemetery sometimes the funeral home who handles the burial has contracts with other cemeteries to prepare the site for burial and or the Monumnet company also does the preperations for the sevices. I know that in the Lafayette Cemetery in Detroit the last burial was in 1960s time frame and the Temple Beth El Cemetery hired one of the employees of Elmwood Cemetery to dig the grave and then the workers from Beth El finished the set up for the funeral and when the Funeral home brought the body and family to the Cemetery they had to park on the road as there was no place to park so Lafayette St. was effectively cut off from traffic until the service was over. As to establishing ownership you only need to provide the cemetery board with the names of living descendants and death records of the last person who was buried there. In my case I presented Roseland Park in Berkely, MI with the death records of my great grandparents, uncle, grandparents and the death record of my aunt and my mothers birth record to prove that I am the sole descendant next in line for ownership. When I pass on my children will have the ownership papers for proof of ownership. You need to get in touch with the Board to establish this ownership and they will have to give you title to the remaining plots as I did with Roseland Park. Jean Payton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Lee Phillips" <fuffle@ix.netcom.com> To: <MIOAKLAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 4:52 AM Subject: [MIOAKLAN] Franklin Cemetery > This is an interesting and disturbing subject. Yes, governments and civil agencies are often cavalier about older cemeteries and it can be difficult to stop them once they get started. > > Perhaps someone can advise me on this one. Franklin Cemetery, in the village of Franklin, the township must be Southfield or Bloomfield I think. This is a pioneer cemetery, and I'm sure the local historical groups are going to work to protect it. But it also happens to be the burial place of a good number of my direct ancestors. It doesn't appear on most lists of active > cemeteries, but there are still recent burials (my own father just ten years ago, for instance.) Who has the records? How can I establish 'ownership' or rights to remaining family plots there? My father, his parents, most of his siblings, and two prior generations of his maternal line are all buried there. > > Gary Lee Phillips > (now residing in Illinois, but quite likely the oldest and nearest living descendant of all those folks) > > > > ==== MIOAKLAN Mailing List ==== > You can contact the listowner at Judy@BirdGenealogy.org > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >