The Gift of Local Resources

 

When looking for leads on ancestors, it is indeed encouraging to discover that the place they once called home now has a dedicated cadre of volunteers intent on preserving their stories. That is the gift of local people who value preserving their history: they create resources which help others do the same.

While I've heard reports from disappointed researchers, recently returned from research journeys in places without much resources, in the case of this month's project—to find Hugh Stevens in 1850s Lafayette, Indiana—I may be in luck. Tippecanoe County apparently has an ample supply of residents dedicated to preserving records dating back to the county's formation in 1826.

I've benefitted from the ongoing work of these volunteers now for decades, having personally visited the Alameda McCollough Research Library of the Tippecanoe County Historical Association, and followed up with material placed online by the Tippecanoe County Area Genealogical Society. Years ago, one of the Society's longstanding board members personally assisted me in locating the grave sites of my husband's Kelley ancestors at the historic Greenbush Cemetery, using original burial records to mark that location for our upcoming visit that year.

As it turns out, there are ongoing projects the county's volunteers are still pursuing, judging by what I've read while on the hunt to find answers to my current research question. According to an article in Lafayette Magazine, a September 1, 2014, publication of the Lafayette Journal & Courier, there's been plenty of work to assemble a thorough listing of all cemeteries in the county, versions of which can be viewed on the Society's site at Rootsweb.com, as well as the older Indiana GenWeb site.

What I am keen to see, though, is the joint project of the Society and Historical Association, called "Finding the Forgotten." This grant-funded project, launched in 2016, sought to comb through county records to glean information on pauper burials dating from the county's creation in 1826 through 1860. Though the TIPCOA website does indicate an alphabetical listing was created, only those for surnames beginning with the letter "A" are accessible. 

With our likely relative Hugh Stevens' arrival in Lafayette in the early 1850s followed so quickly by his disappearance, a likely scenario might have been death from disease contracted during his voyage from Ireland. If that were the case for such a recently-arrived immigrant, it could be likely that he was buried in a pauper's grave. I have yet to find any other records of what became of him, making a listing such as the "Finding the Forgotten" project a promising resource to check.