May 2021 archive

Clues in the 1850 Mortality Schedule

As I was researching this week’s Tombstone Tuesday about Michael Billman I found some additional information about a woman who I theorize may have been his daughter.

The records of Zion Lutheran Schumm indicate that Louisa A. Billman married John Bienz on 7 November 1848 at Zion.

Tombstone Tuesday-Michael Billman

This is the tombstone of Michael Billman, located in row 9 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:

IN
Memory of
Michael Billman
who died June 9th
1846
aged 47 years
11 mo & 9 d.

Ducklings Galore! (not genealogy related, but cute)

We have lived here on our wooded lot for well over forty years. We have a pond in our back yard and nearly every spring some ducks arrive but they only stay a couple weeks. A variety of ducks will visit but mainly we get mallard ducks and wood ducks.

Tombstone Tuesday-Urn Symbol

One of the earliest and most commonly used gravestone icons is the likeness of an urn placed on top of a tombstone or carved onto the grave marker.

The urn was one of the first symbols used that replaced the death head and soul effigy in the 19th century,

Final 3 Friends Churches of Van Wert Quarterly Meeting

The past couple weeks I have written about Friends Churches in Mercer and Van Wert Counties that were established under the Van Wert Quarterly Meeting of Friends (Quakers), as described in Gregory P. Hinshaw’s brief history of the churches.

Hinshaw’s history tells that there were 3 additional Friends churches in the Van Wert Quarterly Meeting, two of them in other counties and the third in another state.