Isn't it great when you find long lost family? Glad that everything turned out. Cheryl J Skinner Connecting Family Dots Tasy Creations -----Original Message----- From: ohbelmon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:ohbelmon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Jae BROWN Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 1:47 AM To: ohbelmon@rootsweb.com Subject: [OHBELMON] My trip to Belmont County Hi, everyone, Some may want to hear about my trip to Belmont County, though perhaps you might find it uneventful. First, it was very brief -- only about five hours out of our vacation. But, for me, it was a great breakthrough in my genealogy of the Berry family. On Saturday afternoon, I'll send you all a link to the photos I took, including many graves of Naylor, Powell, Current, Beard, Hinton, Shry, Brown, Logan, and more. Thanks to a member of this list, I have found one of my ancestors in Belmont County and evidence that links her to the family at large. Unfortunately, I can't find the list member's name! I'm so sorry and I hope you will make yourself known to me again. Anyway, this list member mentioned a book that had inscriptions from a book called "Tombstones of Belmont County." One inscription in the book was tantalizingly close to the information I had on one of my ancestors. But the age was wrong! Blast! So we went to Belmont County, hoping to prove the book wrong (and right) and we did prove it wrong and right. The tombstone inscription was from a stone at the Pleasant Ridge Methodist Church graveyard. I suppose I am used to Indiana, because I thought it couldn't be much trouble to locate a church graveyard. How wrong I was. Pleasant Ridge Methodist is a living church but, like most things near Barnesville, it is extraordinarily rural. Located in the hilly country of Wayne Township, the church is surrounded by many Amish and "English" farms and what land is not grazed by cattle is planted in beans. While the area is remote, it is not backward, as my husband discovered when he inadvertently touched a farm fence. It was electrified. (What an eye opener!) The directions normally given to Pleasant Ridge got us in the vicinity but it took the locals to actually direct us to the church. These 'township roads' are steep hill roads located in lonely areas of the county! We drove for a long time, amazed by the beauty of the hills but also surprised when we saw another human. The church itself has a delightful white neo-gothic steeple and it is situated in a most picturesque location. The fall leaves were maybe one week past perfect but nonetheless the area of vast and lovely. The church is situated alone on the ridge and the well-tended graveyard is across the unpaved road. The graves are old but many stones are new, suggesting that the families are still in the area and still involved in their history. At least two family groups of graves are in disarray -- one because it has a tree growing through the group and one because the stones have collapsed and been piled up upon each other. We found our stones just as we were giving up the search. Though the graveyard is small, the oldest stones, and ours were among them, are severely etched and worn. After a long search in Barnesville, we couldn't locate chalk to highlight the inscriptions and we settled for crayons. I am thrilled to tell you we found the grave of my gr-gr- grandfather's daughter, ADA, who died young (age 10) in Belmont county. The 'Tombstones' book did not include the complete stone inscription and, with the added detail, we were left without a shred of doubt that, on the very spot we were standing, also stood my pioneering gr-gr-grandparents! How difficult it was to scale these hills and go to church, we can only guess. We found Ada's grave adjacent to two other graves of ancestors whose names we recognized from census records. An incredible breaththrough! I will post a link to photos tomorrow! Jae' ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to OHBELMON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message