John Charles Slowey - Wisconsin to South Dakota - Part 7

I think we left off with a letter going to the Register's office for John Charles' birth certificate, and having discovered a completely different birth date - roughly a year prior to what was contained on all his other records.  While waiting for the Register's office to respond, and since it's Halloween, I thought I'd try to find out where he is buried.  Cemetery searches ... doesn't get more spooky than that, right?

His death certificate says he is buried in Catholic Cemetery in Mayfield, South Dakota.  I started with a search at one of my favorite FREE sites: Find-A-Grave.  They had a total of 2 Sloweys for Yankton County, South Dakota ... and those were two that I added myself not too long ago.

I headed over to South Dakota Gravestone Photos and did a general search for "Slowey" in Yankton County.  Wow!  There are a LOT of Sloweys buried in Yankton, South Dakota!  Sadly, not any of the ones listed are my great great grandfather.  Keep in mind, this is only a list of the graves that have had photos taken, not a complete listing of all the graves in all the cemeteries.

While I was revisiting some of my saved websites, I ran across a listing at South Dakota State Historical Society that I had not noticed before.  They keep cemetery records.  It can't hurt to search, right?  So I searched for all the Sloweys in Yankton County.  What returned is a list of 23 individuals buried in three different cemeteries:

There he is, buried at ... Mayfield Catholic Cemetery in Irene, South Dakota ... not Mayfield, South Dakota.  There are his parents, too, Patrick and Catherine.

So, I headed back over to Find-A-Grave and did a cemetery lookup for Mayfield Catholic Cemetery.  It had one individual listed.  One.  So, I went ahead and added John Charles Slowey to the record. 

Once he was added (and this is the best part about this site), I went to his listing and clicked on the button that says "Request a Photo."  Now, someone who lives up there near the cemetery can swing by when they have a few minutes to spare and take a photo of the grave marker and upload it to the site.  I will get a notification by email that my photo request has been successfully fulfilled, and then I can click on the link to view the photo.  Hopefully, it will only take a few days or so.  I will also put in requests for Patrick and Catherine's graves.

Speaking of Find-A-Grave, I strongly encourage you to check it out.  It's a great service that is completely volunteer driven.  Every once in a while, you can find me traipsing around a few of the Chattanooga cemeteries and snapping photos.  You don't have to have a request to get the photos, either.  If I see an interesting grave marker, I'll use my Find-A-Grave Droid App (beta), which I downloaded for free from the Android Market, to make sure there isn't already a photo on the site.  If there isn't, I'll snap a photo and upload it to the site when I get home.  (I rarely use my camera phone to take cemetery photos).  Check it out, become a volunteer.

Next time, the hunt for an obituary.  Happy Halloween!