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With Columbus’ Spring Pilgrimage just around the corner, Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science students are preparing for their annual production of Tales from the Crypt, set to begin April 8.
For months, students research the lives of people buried in Friendship Cemetery, transforming historical documents into spooky, educational monologues performed on the gravesites themselves.
Aimed at providing a first-hand look at local history, programs like this highlight just how much history is tucked away in Golden Triangle cemeteries. How can locals independently explore this history and trace family roots?
Is it hard to research local cemeteries?
Mona Vance-Ali, historian and archivist at the Billups-Garth Archives in the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, said research often starts simply by asking: Is my ancestor buried here?
“People usually come in trying to find a relative,” Vance-Ali said. “And they’re either there or they’re not… and based on that… that’s when the real work can begin.”
Historians like Vance-Ali consider sites such as Friendship Cemetery in Columbus, Odd Fellows Cemetery in Starkville, and West Point Memorial Gardens fairly easy to research, due to long histories of preservation and community support.
“In those cemeteries… almost every grave has been documented, indexed and categorized,” she said, making research relatively straightforward.
Beyond the more well-known, the Golden Triangle boasts more than 150 cemeteries between Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay counties, according to community-driven database findagrave.com.
Smaller cemeteries and especially African American burial grounds, such as Sandfield Cemetery in Columbus and Brush Arbor Cemetery in Starkville, can be a bit harder to research, Vance-Ali said.
“These sites present unique challenges,” Vance-Ali said. “Many African Americans, especially formerly enslaved people, couldn’t afford headstones … Markers were often never installed or made of materials that didn’t survive … Mississippi didn’t require birth or death certificates until 1912, leaving families dependent on oral history or family Bibles.”
How can you explore cemeteries and your own genealogy?
Local historian Rufus Ward suggests starting simple.
“Cemeteries are beautiful to walk in,” he said. “Notice the monuments, gravestones, flowers, epitaphs, and designs… sometimes a broken monument marks where a family pillar is buried.”
Ward also recommends visiting the Oktibbeha County Heritage Museum or the Stephen D. Lee Home Museum to learn more about 19th-century life.
Genealogy research varies by site. At the Billups-Garth Archives staff can help locate maps, funeral home records and documents cataloging local cemeteries. For Clay County, Ward points to the West Point Library History Department.
Mississippi State University Archives and Special Collections offers the Mississippiana Collection, which includes family histories, transcribed records, and genealogical indexes. Staff can perform brief research or schedule longer sessions by appointment, and online forms allow requests for obituaries, newspaper articles, or consultations.
Online tools like the Mississippi Department of Archives and History’s digital database, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch, and AfriGeneas can supplement on-site research, helping beginners and seasoned researchers alike trace family history across the Golden Triangle.
What do you do when you hit a wall in your research?
Local researcher Shannon Evans, who has worked to catalog Black cemeteries through the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund, suggests getting creative when records go cold.
“I go to the courthouse to see who owns property,” Evans said. “I do deed searches and look at tax rolls … then go back to the library, look through old documents, books, directories. … You figure out if something would be there, then talk to family members.
“A lot of research comes from word-of-mouth,” she added. “Ask about churches, ask older folks, and they’ll tell you about their grandparents or memories… It’s like an Easter egg hunt.”
Even with resources, cemetery research requires patience and verification, Evans said.
“Assuming all dates are accurate or taking info from other people’s genealogy work without checking it is risky,” Evans said. “It’s like writing a term paper… you can’t just use one source.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
