Journey to the Past: Green Lawn Cemetery part 1

I've been posting about the amazing journey I took to Columbus, Ohio to seek after my ancestors on my mother's and father's side. Since I live so far away from Columbus, I knew I couldn't just pick one family name and focus on them. I wanted to maximize my time in the various places, particularly in Green Lawn Cemetery.

Prior to my trip, I had searched through my family tree, using RootsMagic, to find any person who died in Franklin County, Ohio. I then cross referenced that list with the Green Lawn Cemetery Burials listings hosted by Joe Fleshman. I also searched the Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953 database hosted by FamilySearch.org. I had a list of 60 closely and remotely related persons that were definitely buried in Green Lawn Cemetery. Now I had a problem, how would I get their plot numbers?

When I contacted Green Lawn Cemetery, I was informed that it would cost me $3 per name to get that information. YIKES. That's $180. However, if I went to the Columbus Metropolitan Library, the Green Lawn records are available on microfilm. "Yeah!" (said with heavy sarcasm) "Spending a day searching microfilm before I could search the cemetery." Spending the time and money didn't make a lot of sense. Enter another solution, a volunteer looked up all the names and sent me the burial cards. Sweet! Now I had the lot numbers and maps where to go. (I will concede that perhaps the Green Lawn staff would have given me the location of the stones and were charging $3 for the burial records. If that's the case, we had a misunderstanding. Nevertheless, thanks to an AWESOME volunteer, I had the burial records and the plot section numbers).

While my hubby tended our five children 10 hours away at our home, I tromped through cemeteries. On May 21st, I rose early to spend the entire day in Green Lawn Cemetery.

I would visit the following sections, specifically looking for the following persons:

Section 30: Leslie Akison
Section 46: Magdalena Geiszler
Section 47: Spencer C Ranck, Lillian Ranck, Infant son Ranck, and Maria Schmipf
Section 62: Samuel and Caroline Barton, Julius and Frederick Bergener
Section 64: John and Minnie Borst, Ida Eisel
Section 69: Horace Ranck
Section 74: George Karlsberger, Frederich and Wilhelmina Gerlacher, Katherine Gast
Section 75: Harry and Freda Barnes
Section 82: George and Evaline Geiszler, Carl Richard Geiszler (but I covered the day before)
Section 84: William and Sarah Stone
Section 93: William T and Evaline Peak; William Richard Peak, John Karlsberger, Marie Lange, Elmer Ranck, Eugene Brown, Charles Morrow
Section 112: Frederick and Juanita Gerlacher
Section 113: Marion and Nellie Bush
Section L: William Webb
Section P: Charles Gordon
Section S: Elsie Baumgartner
 Section V: Annie M Geiszler, Infant son Geiszler, Christopher Hoppe Sr, Christopher Hoppe Jr, Anne M Hoppe

There were a few additional sections on my list, if I had time to get to.

I had a lot of sections to visit in this massive cemetery.
They're are highlighted in mauve. Could I do it?


Whew! Are you tired yet? I knew I had a lot of names, but I would also have time to take pictures of additional headstones. It was time to get cracking.

This is another installment in a lengthy multi-series post about the fantastic research trip I took to Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio. If you're just joining the this series, you'll be able to see every post under the label Research Trip.

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