Frank & Ruth Myers

My sister-in-law recently had the oppurtunity to go grave searching for her great-grandfather in Colorado. She knew when he died and the general area. So after some searching she was able to stop on her recent trip and find his grave. What a great oppurtunity! She agreed to share her great find with us; thank you! She did the research ahead of time, then when it came time to find the cemetery she asked for some help. So her husband made some inquiries and a few phone calls later she was able to find the right cemetery.

First we have a picture of Francis Marion Myers, known as Frank Myers. He was working on the Moffet Tunnel at the time of his death. If you do not know what the Moffet Tunnel is, then you should click on the name and it will take you to Wikipedia for more information. ( I do not endorse Wikipedia as always having the correct information, but it is a good resource to start with.) Anyway, Frank was born in 1880- I do not know where. He died 20 September 1927; two days after being critically injured. He broke his neck and severed his spinal cord.









This was Frank's wife, Ruth Pyle Myers Downey. Ruth remarried after Frank's death. She died in February 1950.

Mabel Byrnes

This is a photo of my great-grandmother Mabel McMurray Byrnes. She was 49 years old when she died in 1952. She was the only child of Edwin Jeremiah and Mary Ann (McDonough) McMurray.




This is her obituary that appeared in the local newspaper.

McMurray Family Photos

These are pictures sent to me by a McMurray cousin.

Jasper McMurray is the son of Lindsey John and Rachel (Gorrell) McMurray. I do not have dates for any of these photos. The dates listed below the pictures are their birthdates.






Jasper and Maude had 12 children. These are photos of all of their children.

Benjamin Roose

Benjamin Edward Roose was born 25 December 1914 in Bakerton, Cambria County, Pennsylvania to Edward and Elizabeth (Harrison) Roose.

He served in the Army during World War II. He was killed in action in France. He is buried in Highwood Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.


This is the obituary that appeared in the local newspaper.

This is a picture of the purple heart medal that he earned.

Byrnes Family

Again this is a picture of a picture, I am not sure who has possession of this photograph.

This is a picture of the Byrnes Family. I am told that this is the only picture that has been found to include the whole family, all 10 family members are in this picture.

As some of these family members are still living today, I will not label all of the people in this picture. If you would like to know who they are, email me privately.

I will say who a few of them are though. Standing in the back row is my great-grandmother Mabel (McMurray), to her left is her husband John. In the front row the second person from the left is my grandmother Mabel Byrnes Kuth.

McMurray Pictures

These are pictures of my great-great-grandparents, Edwin Jeremiah McMurray and Mary Ann McDonough McMurray. These are pictures of pictures, I am not sure who actually has possession of these pictures I was emailed copies only.

Edwin Jeremiah McMurray was commonly known as Jerry McMurray. He was born 16 April 1870 in West Virginia and he died 10 April 1918 probably in West Virginia. I will post a follow up about his death, there were many stories about how he actually died.





Mary Ann McDonough McMurray was known to everyone as Grandma McMurray, or at least that is what I have heard everyone refer to her as. She was born in County Mayo, Ireland on 24 September 1881 and she died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 22 February 1969. I never met Grandma McMurray, she died the day I was born. She died in the very hospital I was born in. On the back of Mary's picture is her wedding date to Edwin McMurray, 25 December 1902.

Finding a Grave

Many of you know I work regularly on searching for information. One of the hardest things I have searched for is finding where people are actually buried. Even if you find someone that attended a funeral, they do not always remember the name of a cemetery.

With the onslaught of people looking for genealogy information there have been many people that have stepped up to help with this problem. People have gone and walked through cemeteries writing information from tombstones, taking pictures of the tombstones, some people have walked with video cameras capturing the tombstones, people have done rubbings on the tombstones with crayons or even chalk. Many of these people have published books with this information. The books are then sold, but soon go out of print or so I have found. Then along came the internet. People began to publish the information for free on the internet on various websites. This is much better than a book, as a book is outdated usually before it is published.

There is of course a flaw in this system. If you are only collecting information from tombstones, then you are missing most likely many graves in a cemetery. There are some people that are buried and never get a tombstone, so they are over looked in this transcription process.

If you stop at a cemetery office, they will of course tell you where a grave is located in their cemetery. Sometimes they charge a look up fee, especially if you go in and tell them you are doing genealogy or family history work. Also at the office they give you a map, so you can navigate your way through the cemetery. I recently visited a cemetery that was 100 acres, so walking the whole cemetery looking for a specific grave would have taken a very long time.

A quick place to look for a grave or even add a grave information is at www.findagrave.com . This is a free to use site, but it is a commercial site and it does have a lot of pop-ups, so beware before you get started. While at the site you can look up any name, in any location. I have tried to go in and start putting some of the information that I already have on hand. So you might be able to find some people if you start searching there. Also on this website people can place pictures of the tombstones, which is a really great feature. I need to resize my pictures before I can post them, but I will be posting quite a few pictures. I have been including some obituaries if I already had them on my computer. I have some that need to be transcribed, which I will work on.

To make a search on this website easier, I put a link at the bottom of my blog. So if you scroll all the way to the bottom, just make sure you come back and finishing reading though, you can search from here to there.

If you do not want to add anything to this site yourself, but would like for me to add some information I would be happy to do so. Just send me an email with the information and a picture if you have one. I will update on the website a couple of times a week or as I have time. If you find an error in something that was submitted, oops please just let me know and I will correct it.

Happy searching.......