Project will document ‘forgotten’ Iowa headstones

Joseph Miller, president of the Cedar Rapids Stake (Diocese) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints talks concerning the fragments of the headstone of John Kirkpatrick inset in concrete subsequent to a more recent headstone at Kirkpatrick Cemetery. The cemetery is perched on a hill in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood in southwest Cedar Rapids. Kirkpatrick served within the Ohio Militia within the Warfare of 1812. The Cedar Rapids stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hoping to set a Guinness World File for the variety of headstones photographed and documented. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Fragments of the headstone of John Kirkpatrick are inset in concrete subsequent to a newer headstone at Kirkpatrick Cemetery. The cemetery is perched on a hill in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood in southwest Cedar Rapids. Kirkpatrick served within the Ohio Militia within the Warfare of 1812. The Cedar Rapids Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hoping to set a Guinness World File for the variety of headstones photographed and documented. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Joseph Miller, president of the Cedar Rapids Stake (Diocese) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints talks concerning the fragments of the headstone of John Kirkpatrick inset in concrete subsequent to a more recent headstone at Kirkpatrick Cemetery. The cemetery is perched on a hill in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood in southwest Cedar Rapids. Kirkpatrick served within the Ohio Militia within the Warfare of 1812. The Cedar Rapids stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hoping to set a Guinness World File for the variety of headstones photographed and documented. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Joseph Miller, president of the Cedar Rapids Stake (Diocese) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints talks concerning the fragments of the headstone of John Kirkpatrick inset in concrete subsequent to a more recent headstone at Kirkpatrick Cemetery. The cemetery is perched on a hill in a cul-de-sac of a neighborhood in southwest Cedar Rapids. Kirkpatrick served within the Ohio Militia within the Warfare of 1812. The Cedar Rapids stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hoping to set a Guinness World File for the variety of headstones photographed and documented. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — For greater than 200,000 Iowans who died earlier than 1880, there could also be no public document of their existence moreover a gravestone.

Due to this, the Cedar Rapids stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is launching the Rescuing Our Roots challenge to {photograph} and doc 20,000 Iowa headstones beginning Sept. 10 and ending Memorial Day 2023.

“We expect this can be a nice service we will present to our group to protect information that might probably deteriorate or disappear,” mentioned Joseph Miller, stake president, of Cedar Rapids.

In addition they hope to win a Guinness World File, presumably for importing essentially the most gravestone photos right into a single on-line album.

Deaths not recorded

Iowa turned a state in 1846, however till 1880, didn’t monitor births or deaths. Marriages, which required a license, had been recorded, however solely on the county stage, in response to the State Historic Society of Iowa.

Laws handed in 1880 created the Iowa Division of Public Well being and required all births, deaths and marriages be recorded on the county and state ranges.

Iowans who lived earlier than this time could also be documented by their descendants or in information from bigger cemeteries. However some Iowans had been buried in off-the-beaten-path plots now engulfed by agricultural land, woods and even residential neighborhoods.

The Kirkpatrick Cemetery consists of three seen headstones on a cul-de-sac in a improvement simply north of Freeway 30 in Cedar Rapids. Surrounding the graves on Hay Discipline Courtroom SW are homes constructed within the late 2000s.

The first headstones mark the grave of John Kirkpatrick, a Warfare of 1812 veteran who was born in 1789 and died in 1860.

A household historian who talked with Dave Rasdal, a former Gazette columnist, in 2012, mentioned Kirkpatrick moved to Iowa in 1846 along with his household and purchased 10 acres of land southeast of Cedar Rapids. The federal government gave him one other 50 acres for his wartime service, Rasdal reported.

The Ely American Legion uncovered the decaying shingle gravestone within the Eighties and has maintained the grave through the years.

However at the least two different graves sit on the hill, which was seemingly the Kirkpatrick household plot. One seems prefer it says “Wi,” which can have mentioned “Spouse” and the opposite bears elements of the letters “M” and “A.” Through the years, somebody has poured concrete markers over the crumbled stones, more likely to protect them.

“I’m one hundred pc sure there are extra graves on this web site,” Miller mentioned. “We nonetheless have some gaps in what we learn about this household.”

Making an attempt for a document

The Historical past Heart, a challenge associate, has pulled collectively assets, such because the “Historical past of Linn County Iowa: From It’s Earliest Settlement to the Current Time,” written by Barthinius Wick and Luther Brewer in 1911. This guide lists all native cemeteries on the time.

“Even then, it talks about what number of cemeteries weren’t properly maintained,“ mentioned Tara Templeman, Historical past Heart curator. ”We’re on the lookout for data that’s most likely misplaced in some methods. There are issues we are going to by no means discover.“

For the Guinness World File challenge, the church additionally has teamed up with BillionGraves, one of many world’s largest assets for searchable GPS cemetery information, and FamilySearch, an LDS-affiliated web site that gives free on-line assets to attach with relations.

BillionGraves has a free app that lets customers discover native cemeteries, sorted by measurement, and even search by an individual’s title to see if their gravestone photograph is within the database.

Individuals who wish to be a part of the challenge could go to the BillionGraves web site to seek out Iowa cemeteries that also have undocumented headstones. Begin by clicking on a cemetery and observe the directions.

If you happen to’ve explored the web assets and nonetheless have questions, need assistance, or want to plan a big group outing, e mail Volunteer@BillionGraves.com. Mission leaders search to doc all graves, not simply these linked to the LDS church.

If of household burial plots or different small cemeteries not seen on the BillionGraves web site, please e mail Susan Sims at susansims@justserve.org, so as to add them to the challenge.

“We’d prefer to ask our communities for assist in letting us learn about forgotten headstones that is perhaps residing on their farmland or by the aspect of the street,” Miller mentioned. “We don’t need any of these 200,000 to be forgotten.”

Feedback: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com