Announcing Cemetery Readings of Jackson County, West Virginia North of U.S. Route 33 (Includes burials up to Summer 1978) by George W. Archer Some background to the the readings: Over the last 30 years, I have done a global study of all Jackson Co., WV Archers (where my father was born) and their ancestors and descendants and their migrations, covering 10 or more generations, part of a larger study of all the descendants of Patrick Archer c. 1717- c. 1793, the Irish Catholic immigrant, from whom the Jackson Co. WV Archers descend. During the summers of 1977 and 1978 I recorded every stone in nearly every cemetery north of U.S. Route 33 in Jackson Co., WV looking for my grandfather, Stephen N. Archer 1854 - Jan 1884 (Stephen, Nathan, JamesI, Patrick), without success. In the Fall of 2007, I audited the transcriptions made by a voluneer of 20 hours of audio tapes containing 6,000 names in 63 cemeteries and then indexed and published it in both hard copy and as CD's for distribution to selected libraries listed below. Then I gave the files to Rootsweb to include on their Cemetery Project. The URLs below point to the full 600 page document of which 300 pages is an index including cross-indexed women's maiden names). The main link to the collection on RootsWeb is: >>> http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/westvirg/jackson2.html <<< (This displays links to the URLs below) Introduction: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/jackson/cemetery/intro.txt Notes: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/jackson/cemetery/notes.txt Index: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/jackson/cemetery/index.txt (Comment: the page numbers in the index refer to the printed version in WordPerfect 5.1, but may be useful to someone to verify that a name is present in the readings) Sources: (bibliography) http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/wv/jackson/cemetery/sources.txt There is no on-line index to the entire collection, and at present I do not intend to do an HTML encoded index for all 63 cemeteries. RootsWeb preferred to make each cemetery a separate file accessible with an URL instead of a single searchable file that would take longer to load but would be easy to search if each name in the index were hyper-linked to the entry in one of the 63 cemeteries. With the exception of an ARCHER index linked to specific cemeteries, you will have to search each of the files separately for the burial/names you are looking for. Eventually Rootsweb may create an HTML-linked every-name index to all 63 cemetery files. For the benefit of ARCHER surname researchers, I have created below an index to the cemetery readings containing all 107 ARCHER-surnamed persons including non-ARCHER women married to an ARCHER. This can be accessed at http://http://www.archercousins.com/ArcherAssn/ main page and click on "Jackson Co. WV Cemetery Readings." Find the names you want and that will take you to the text of the readings where that ARCHER (including a married woman named ARCHER) is buried. There are copies of the entire document in four versions on CD: Plain Text -ASCII MS-Word WordPerfect 5.1 (DOS with page-numbered index) HTML in the following libraries: Public Libraries: Jackson Co. WV: Ripley and Ravenswood Wood Co., WV, Parkersburg Washington Co., OH: Washington - Genealogy Library collections Ft. Wayne, IN - Genealogy Dept Ohio Genealogical Society: Mansfield, OH - Society Headquarters OGS Chapters: Monroe Co., OH Guernsey Co., OH Other Libraries: Family History Library, Salt Lake, UT Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (has a hard copy and CD) West Virginia Archives, Library, Charleston, WV Boone, NC: Appalachian State Teachers College- Appelechia Collection If you have access to these libraries, I have given them permission to make copies of the entire CD or any of the 4 text versions and the included images of road maps showing locations of the 63 cemeteries in Jackson Co. Take your own CD or make arrangements locally to cover library CD costs. Contact: George Archer - garcher@wdn.com George W. Archer List Administrator of ARCHER, the Archer surname mail list ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Archer Association - an ARCHER Surname Clearinghouse George Archer Internet: garcher @ wdn. com PO Box 6233 McLean, VA 22106 http://www.archercousins.com/ArcherAssn ------------------------------------------------------------------------