This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Chalmers, Geddes, Raysor, Montgomery, Fishburne Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ncB.2ACE/1469 Message Board Post: Elizabeth Sophia Chalmers was born in 1809 in Charleston. She wed James M. Raysor, son of Michael & Eleanor Risher Raysor. They had the following children: James M., Jr, Leonidas M, George Washington, Harriet, Henry Chalmers, Elizabeth Sophia, Sarah Chalmers, Rebecca Octavia, and Benjamin Stokes Raysor. All of their 5 sons served in the CSA, one being killed and another sustaining “severe injuries”. For more information on James M. Raysor, see Pat Sabin’s excellent Raysor History site at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~raysor/ In this document I concentrate on the Chalmers/Geddes side of the family, which is where I was able to further our research during my recent trip. Elizabeth S. Chalmers was the daughter of Henry James Chalmers b. 1787 Charleston and Elizabeth Geddes b. 1789 in Charleston. He and Miss Geddes married on Nov 8, 1807. Elizabeth was their first child. Other children following include Harriet Anna Chalmers who married Robert Fishburne. Caroline Chalmers, Ann Montgomery Chalmers and Henry James Chalmers, Jr. Headstone Inscriptions from Chalmers/Geddes burials in First Scots Presbyterian Church, Charleston: Bev’s Notes: These huge stones are tall (perhaps 8 feet), marble and thin, appearing at one time to be laying on the ground or perhaps as tablets on a mausoleum. All the Chalmers/Geddes burials were in the location of the current fellowship hall. All the stones were removed in the 1950’s and were pressed into the brick walls surrounding the churchyard) No attempt to remove the bodies was made and the fellowship hall was built directly over the cemetery. Thankfully an attempt was made to preserve the stones and these can now be seen as one walks the churchyard - memorial stones are pressed into buildings, walls, fences, etc. Even the children’s playground is “fenced” with these large stones, including the Chalmers stone. Interestingly these stones contain the names of multiple family members instead of one stone per family member. Sometimes the family relationships aren’t clear until further genealogical inspection, such ! as the listing below of John Geddes, Jr. Rather than resting with his father, his remains rest “beneath the tomb of Gilbert Chalmers” who would have been his maternal grandfather. Some are virtually unreadable and it was only the good fortune of descendants that in 1888 the ladies of the Church did a thorough transcription of the stones. Their handwritten records are available in the church office and were invaluable in deciphering the information on the weathered stones. See Post # 2 ................