Category: Boots on the Ground Researching

The Mystery of Mary Harbaugh

Jim Samuelson in front of Mary Harbaugh’s grave, Harbaugh Church Cemetery, Rouzerville, Franklin, PA Photo by Lori Samuelson 16 June 2026.

Every genealogist knows the thrill of finding a gravestone that has been hiding in plain sight and every genealogist knows the disappointment that sometimes follows.

Recently, while visiting Harbaugh family cemeteries in Pennsylvania and Maryland, I experienced both emotions on the same day.

The discovery began in Harbaugh Church Cemetery in Rouzerville, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

I had visited the cemetery nearly ten years earlier while researching my husband’s Harbaugh family. During that visit, I failed to notice a weathered stone marking the grave of a woman named Mary Harbaugh who died in 1843.

This time, however, my husband Jim spotted it. I should not have been surprised.

Over the years, Jim has developed an uncanny ability to notice things I overlook. Whether it is a partially hidden gravestone, a faded inscription, or a clue buried in plain sight, he often finds what I miss.

Standing in the cemetery, I was delighted by the discovery.

The stone was difficult to read, weathered by nearly two centuries of exposure to Pennsylvania winters and summer heat. Yet enough remained visible to identify the woman as Mary Harbaugh and to establish that she died in 1843.

Naturally, my mind immediately began searching for an identity.

Genealogists are problem-solvers by nature. When presented with an unknown individual, we instinctively begin fitting pieces together. Who was she? How did she fit into the family? Why was she buried here?

Almost immediately, I convinced myself I had the answer.

I recalled that my husband’s third great-grandmother, Mary Garver, had died in 1843. She and her husband had lived in nearby Waynesboro. The dates seemed reasonable. The location appeared plausible.

For a brief moment, I thought the mystery was solved.

Then I looked more carefully. Genealogy has a way of humbling us. The Mary I had in mind was not Mary Harbaugh at all. She was Mary Garver Eyster.

Her gravestone still survives, not in Pennsylvania, but across the state line in the Harbaugh Family Cemetery near Sabillasville, Frederick County, Maryland.

The woman in Rouzerville was someone else entirely. Back to the drawing board.

At first, I was frustrated. After all, identifying an unknown individual is much more satisfying than admitting uncertainty. But the more I reflected on the experience, the more I realized it illustrates one of the most important lessons in genealogy.

A wrong answer is not better than no answer. In fact, one of the greatest dangers researchers face is the temptation to accept a convenient explanation simply because it appears to fit.

Dates align. Locations seem reasonable. Family names match.

Before long, a theory quietly transforms into a fact. Then the mistake gets copied. And copied again. And copied again. Eventually, nobody remembers where the conclusion came from. All they know is that everyone else believes it.

Fortunately, I caught myself before making that mistake.

The truth is simple. I do not know who Mary Harbaugh was.

Not yet.

She does not appear to have a memorial on Findagrave. No immediately obvious record identifies her. The weathered stone provides only a name, a death year, and a question. Yet that question may prove valuable.

Who was she? A wife? A daughter? A widow? A sister? Why was she buried in Harbaugh Church Cemetery? What relationship did she have to the surrounding families?

Somewhere, the answer may still exist. Perhaps a church register survives. Perhaps a probate record remains hidden in an archive. Perhaps a distant cousin will recognize her story. Or perhaps the answer will emerge from a completely unexpected source years from now.

That possibility is one of the reasons I love genealogy.

Not every cemetery visit produces a breakthrough. Not every mystery is solved before we leave the gate.

Sometimes we return home carrying more questions than answers. And that is perfectly acceptable.

Good genealogy is not measured by how many mysteries we solve. It is measured by how honestly we evaluate the evidence.

For now, Mary Harbaugh remains a mystery.

Her weathered stone stands quietly among the graves in Rouzerville, waiting for someone to tell her story. Perhaps one day that someone will be me.

Until then, I am content to leave her where she belongs. Not in the category of “solved.” But in the much more honest category of “still researching.”

Thus ends my cemetery series for the summer. Next week I’ve got some important info to share with you on making your AI experience more effective and efficient.

The Empty Spaces in the Family Plot

Antietam Church Cemetery, Waynesboro, Franklin, Pennsylvania showing the Harbaugh family burials with spaces for graves missing stones; photo by Lori Samuelson 22 June 2026.

Some discoveries are made by finding something. Others are made by noticing what is missing.

During a recent cemetery-hunting trip through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio, I visited numerous burial grounds connected to my husband’s Harbaugh family and my own Duer ancestors. Some visits led to new discoveries. Others answered long-standing questions.

One stop left me with neither.

Instead, it left me staring at several empty spaces in a family burial plot and wondering whether the answers had been there all along.

For years, I have searched for the final resting places of Elias Harbaugh and his wife, Mary Magdaline Weaver Harbaugh.

Elias presents a challenge because his probate file no longer exists in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Based on surviving records, he likely died about 1874. Mary appears to have died around March 1877, her death inferred from a deed recorded by her grandson, George Henry, in 1885.

Like many genealogists, I have spent years piecing together fragments of evidence to reconstruct their lives. What I hoped this trip would provide was something more tangible. A tombstone. A burial record. Some confirmation of where they were laid to rest.

For a long time, I have suspected that Elias and Mary were buried in Antietam Church Cemetery in Waynesboro, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.

The theory is not without support. Their only child who remained in Pennsylvania, Frederick Alexander Harbaugh, was buried there in 1894. The cemetery contains several members of Frederick’s family, suggesting that the Harbaughs used this churchyard for multiple generations.

Ten years ago, I spoke with the church minister regarding burial records. Unfortunately, the surviving records do not extend back to the 1870s. If documentation once existed identifying Elias and Mary’s graves, it has not survived.

Still, I hoped the cemetery itself might provide clues. Cemeteries often tell stories that records cannot.

Families were frequently buried together. Parents, children, spouses, and siblings often occupied adjoining plots. Even when records disappear, burial patterns sometimes survive.

Walking among the Harbaugh stones, I was struck by how weathered many of the markers had become. Time has not been kind to them. Some inscriptions are difficult to read. Others have deteriorated significantly since photographs were taken years ago.

Yet something else caught my attention. Several empty spaces appeared within the family row. Not random gaps. Places that seemed as though stones might once have stood there.

I found myself studying the spaces as carefully as the surviving markers.

Could Elias and Mary have been buried there? Had stones once marked their graves? Were the markers lost to weather, damage, or neglect?

There was no way to know for certain.

My husband, Jim, has an uncanny ability to spot things that others miss. I hoped he might discover a sunken marker, a fragment of stone, or some overlooked clue hidden among the grass.

We searched carefully. Nothing appeared. No broken fragments. No buried marker. No evidence beyond the empty spaces themselves.

We left without answers. Yet I could not stop thinking about what those gaps represented.

Genealogists are trained to focus on evidence we can see and document. We seek records, photographs, inscriptions, and artifacts. We want proof.

But absence can sometimes be evidence, too. An empty place in a family plot may tell a story. A missing probate file may tell a story. A burial record that should exist but doesn’t may tell a story.

None of these pieces alone prove that Elias and Mary rest in Antietam Church Cemetery. Together, however, they create a pattern that is difficult for me to ignore. Sometimes all that remains is a possibility.

I left Antietam Church Cemetery without finding Elias and Mary. Perhaps resting quietly among their family members, their identities lost but their presence still remembered.

Genealogy is often portrayed as a series of discoveries and breakthroughs.

In reality, much of our work involves living with uncertainty.

Not every mystery is solved. Not every ancestor leaves a marker. Not every story reaches a neat conclusion.

For now, Elias and Mary remain missing.

But every time I look at the photograph of that family row, my eyes are drawn not to the stones that remain.

They are drawn to the empty spaces and to the possibility that sometimes what is missing can tell us as much as what survives.

When the Tombstones Disappear

Genealogists spend much of their time searching for things that have been lost.

Missing records. Forgotten stories. Unmarked graves. Destroyed courthouses. Faded photographs.

We become accustomed to loss because loss is woven into the very fabric of family history research. Yet nothing prepared me for returning to a cemetery and discovering that the evidence I had once photographed had disappeared.

Ten years ago, I visited Green Hill Cemetery in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, in search of several members of my husband’s Harbaugh family.

Their tombstones had not originally stood there.

The family had first been buried in Old Union Cemetery adjacent to a church. In 1923, after the property changed ownership, the graves were disinterred and reinterred at Green Hill Cemetery. According to cemetery staff, efforts had been made to notify descendants through notices published in local newspapers. Whether family members living elsewhere ever learned of the move is unknown.

By the time I visited in 2016, the stones had already endured one relocation.

They were worn; no longer standing they were placed flat on the earth. I photographed each one carefully.

At the time, I viewed the images as routine documentation. Like many genealogists, I had become accustomed to photographing tombstones whenever I encountered them. The task felt important, but not urgent.

After all, the stones had already survived for more than a century. Surely they would remain there for future visitors. Or so I thought.

This summer, while returning from a genealogy conference, I decided to revisit Green Hill Cemetery. I wanted to see the stones again.

Perhaps I would notice details I had overlooked a decade earlier. Perhaps advances in photography would allow me to capture inscriptions more clearly. Perhaps I would simply enjoy reconnecting with ancestors whose stories I had spent years researching.

Instead, I found an absence.

The hillside where the stones had once stood had been altered. The markers were gone. Completely gone. For several moments I simply stared at the space where I expected them to be. Had I remembered the location incorrectly? Had the stones been moved again? Had they been damaged? Had they been placed in storage?

I had no answers.

The cemetery office was closed, leaving me with questions and a growing sense of unease.

What troubled me most was not simply that the stones were missing. It was the realization that physical evidence we often assume will remain forever can disappear without warning.

Genealogists sometimes treat cemeteries as permanent repositories of history. In reality, they are vulnerable places. Weather damages monuments. Trees fall. Floods occur. Maintenance priorities change. Ownership changes. Records are misplaced. Occasionally, markers simply vanish.

The experience reminded me of the countless records I have searched for over the years that no longer exist. Probate files that disappeared from courthouse shelves. Church registers lost to fire. Family Bibles discarded during estate sales. Letters thrown away by descendants who did not recognize their value.

Every generation inherits responsibility for preserving the evidence left behind by those who came before. Sometimes we fulfill that responsibility. Sometimes we fail.

Fortunately, I had photographed the stones during my earlier visit. What once seemed like routine documentation now feels considerably more important.

Those photographs preserve information that may no longer be accessible in the cemetery itself. That realization changed the way I think about every cemetery visit.

Take the photographs.

Record the inscriptions.

Capture the surrounding landscape.

Document the location.

Don’t assume someone else already has.

Don’t assume the information will still be there next year.

Most importantly, don’t assume that stone is permanent simply because it has already survived for generations.

Family history exists in a delicate balance between remembrance and forgetting. As genealogists, we often focus on discovering the past. Perhaps an equally important task is preserving it.

The missing stones at Green Hill Cemetery reminded me that our ancestors’ stories are not guaranteed to survive. Their preservation depends upon ordinary people who care enough to record them before they disappear.

Sometimes we search for evidence. Sometimes we become its last caretakers. And sometimes, without realizing it, the photograph we take today may become tomorrow’s only surviving record.

Searching for Christian Harbaugh

Graceham Moravian Church, 8231 Rocky Ridge Road, Graceham, MD; photo by Lori Samuelson 16 June 2026.

Genealogists spend a great deal of time looking for people who do not want to be found. Sometimes they changed their names. Sometimes records were destroyed. Sometimes a clerk simply failed to record an event. And sometimes, despite our best efforts, we arrive at a place only to discover that what we seek remains elusive.

That was my experience this summer while searching for the grave of my husband’s Revolutionary War ancestor, Christian Harbaugh.

Christian was the son of Ludwig Harbaugh, whose beautifully preserved tombstone still stands in St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery in Sabillasville, Maryland. Visiting Ludwig’s grave had been a rewarding experience. The cemetery was well maintained, easy to locate, and offered a tangible connection to a family that arrived in America during the colonial era.

Christian’s story, however, took a different path.

Unlike his father and grandfather, who were associated with the Mennonite faith, Christian became affiliated with the Moravians. That decision immediately caught my attention when I first began researching him years ago. Religious affiliation often shaped where our ancestors lived, whom they married, and where they were buried.

The decision to leave one faith community for another was not always a simple matter in eighteenth-century America.

As I planned my cemetery visits this summer, I hoped to locate Christian’s grave in Graceham Cemetery near Sabillasville, Maryland. Online memorials indicated that his stone existed. A photograph of the marker had even been posted.

How difficult could it be? As it turns out, very difficult. Our first challenge was locating the cemetery itself.

The GPS could not identify Graceham Cemetery. Coordinates listed online were not particularly helpful. Several attempts produced confusing results, and we found ourselves repeatedly circling roads in the area without success.

Rather than continue the search blindly, I decided to try a different approach.

Since Christian had belonged to the Moravian Church, perhaps locating the church would lead us to the cemetery. The strategy seemed sound.

Our GPS quickly located Graceham Moravian Church, a beautiful historic congregation nestled among the rolling hills of Frederick County. Standing in front of the church, I could not help but wonder whether Christian himself had once walked those grounds.

Perhaps he had attended services there. Perhaps family events had been celebrated there. Perhaps he had stood in that very location looking out across the same countryside.

The church connected me to Christian’s life in a way that no document ever could.

But the cemetery remained missing.

We searched nearby roads. We checked maps. We compared information from multiple sources.

Nothing.

Eventually, I had to admit defeat.

The grave I had hoped to visit would remain undiscovered, at least for now.

Driving away, I found myself reflecting on something that genealogy has taught me repeatedly over the years.

We tend to think of research as successful only when we find what we seek.

That is not always true. Sometimes we eliminate possibilities. Sometimes we identify errors. Sometimes we gain a better understanding of an ancestor’s community, beliefs, and daily life. And sometimes we simply learn what does not work.

All of those outcomes have value.

Although I never located Christian’s grave, the trip was not wasted. I walked the grounds of the church that shaped his religious life. I gained a deeper appreciation for the choices he made. I better understood the community in which he lived. Most importantly, I left with new questions.

Why did Christian leave the Mennonite faith of his father? What drew him to the Moravians? How did that decision affect his family and descendants?

The missing grave remains a mystery. Yet some mysteries are worth keeping. They remind us that genealogy is not merely about collecting names, dates, and places. It is about understanding lives.

Christian Harbaugh’s tombstone may have escaped me this summer, but his story did not. Perhaps that is the more important discovery.

Sometimes the journey itself becomes the destination.

What the Neighbors Can Tell You

St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery, Sabillasville, Frederick, Maryland. Christina Weller Harbaugh in between two other stones. Photo by Lori Samuelson, 16 Jun 2026.

Most people visit a cemetery looking for a single gravestone. I used to do the same. Locate the ancestor. Take a photograph. Record the inscription. Move on.

Over the years, however, I have learned that some of the most valuable clues in a cemetery are not found on the stone you came to see. They are found on the stones nearby.

I was reminded of that lesson during a recent visit to St. John’s United Church of Christ Cemetery in Sabillasville, Frederick County, Maryland.

My destination was the grave of Ludwig Harbaugh, a son of Johann Yost Harbaugh and one of my husband’s colonial-era ancestors.

Finding Ludwig’s grave was gratifying. Unlike many of the weathered and damaged stones I had encountered elsewhere during my trip, his marker was well maintained. The cemetery itself was beautifully cared for, with neatly trimmed grass and a peaceful setting that reflected the community’s commitment to preserving its history.

As I photographed the stone, I noticed something interesting. Ludwig’s wife, Christina Weller Harbaugh, was not buried immediately beside him.

Instead, she rested two stones away. At first, that seemed unusual.

Modern cemeteries often group family members together in dedicated plots. We become accustomed to seeing husbands, wives, parents, and children arranged neatly beside one another.

Yet eighteenth and early nineteenth-century burial practices were not always organized that way.

Looking more closely at the surrounding stones, I began to notice a pattern. The burials appeared to follow the order of death rather than family relationships.

Individuals were placed where space was available at the time of burial. Family members might be near one another, but not necessarily side by side.

This observation led me to think about how often genealogists focus too narrowly when visiting cemeteries.

We locate the ancestor we seek and ignore everything else.

In doing so, we may miss important clues.

Who is buried nearby? Are there recurring surnames? Do burial dates suggest epidemics, migration patterns, or community events? Do neighboring stones reveal church customs or social connections?

A cemetery is more than a collection of individual memorials. It is a map of a community.

The arrangement of graves can reveal relationships that are never explicitly recorded in documents. Friends, neighbors, church members, and extended family often shared burial grounds long before they appeared together in census records or probate files.

The landscape itself becomes a historical record.

As I walked among the stones that day, I thought about the generations who had gathered there for funerals, weddings, worship services, and community events. The people buried around Ludwig and Christina were not strangers. They had likely known one another for decades.

They worshipped together. Worked together. Raised families together. And eventually were buried together.

Genealogy often encourages us to focus on individuals. Cemeteries remind us that our ancestors lived within communities.

The next time you visit a cemetery, take a few minutes after locating your ancestor’s grave. Look to the left. Look to the right. Walk a little farther down the row. The stone you didn’t come to see may tell you as much as the one you did.

Sometimes the neighbors have stories to tell, too.

The Cemetery That Wasn’t

Presbyterian Church Cemetery of Kreutz Creek, York, PA, Photo by Lori Samuelson 16 June 2026

One of the most dangerous phrases in genealogy is: “Everyone knows that’s where he is buried.” Whenever I hear those words, I become cautious.

Family traditions are valuable. Published genealogies can be helpful. Online memorials often provide important clues. Yet none of them are substitutes for evidence.

I was reminded of this lesson during a recent trip to Pennsylvania while searching for the burial location of my husband’s sixth great-grandfather, Johann Yost Herbach, later known in America as Johann Yost Harbaugh.

Yost emigrated from the Palatinate region of Germany during the eighteenth century. Along with his wife and children, he arrived in Philadelphia around 1734 before eventually settling in what is now York County, Pennsylvania.

For generations, descendants have believed that Yost was buried near Kreutz Creek. That part appears correct. The question was exactly where.

Like many researchers, I began by reviewing information available online. Findagrave included a memorial for Yost and identified Old Kreutz Creek Cemetery as his burial location. The memorial contained photographs and historical information, including a plaque describing the family’s origins.

At first glance, the information seemed convincing. Then I looked closer. One inscription claimed that members of the family had come from Switzerland. The problem was that they did not. Baptismal records clearly place the family in the Palatinate, specifically in the area around Otterberg. The error may seem minor, but it reminded me how easily inaccurate information can become accepted when it is repeated often enough.

That discovery prompted a larger question. If one part of the story was incorrect, what about the burial location itself?

Rather than relying solely on modern sources, I returned to one of the earliest accounts available. In the mid-nineteenth century, Reverend Henry Harbaugh, a great-grandson of Yost and one of the family’s first historians, wrote about visiting the burial ground. He described a cemetery beside the Kreutz Creek church where tradition held that Yost and his wife had been buried. He noted the absence of a marked grave but described a nearby tombstone belonging to one of Yost’s daughters and a row of uninscribed fieldstones that likely marked other family burials.

The description was detailed and it did not match the cemetery identified online. The more I investigated, the more apparent it became that multiple cemeteries and church properties had become intertwined over the years.

Church congregations moved. Buildings were replaced. Property ownership changed.

What had once been a straightforward family tradition had become increasingly complicated through the passage of nearly three centuries.

Armed with the earlier description, my husband and I set out to locate the original church cemetery.

What we found was not dramatic. As expected, there was no tombstone bearing Yost’s name. No hidden marker emerged from the grass. No long-lost family record appeared. Instead, we found something much more valuable.

Context.

The old cemetery matched the historical description remarkably well. Weathered stones stood quietly among the grass. Time had erased most inscriptions. A foundation remained where an earlier church structure may once have stood.

For a moment, I imagined Reverend Harbaugh standing in that same location nearly 170 years earlier, trying to identify the resting place of his ancestor.

His challenge had become mine and both of us had reached the same conclusion. The evidence pointed here. Not because a website said so. Not because family tradition demanded it. But because the historical record led us there.

Genealogy often rewards persistence, but it also rewards skepticism.

We should never reject family stories simply because they are stories.

Neither should we accept them without question.

Every claim deserves examination. Every source deserves evaluation. Every conclusion should remain open to revision when better evidence emerges.

That is not a weakness in genealogy. It is one of its greatest strengths.

As I left the cemetery that day, I found myself thinking about Yost and the generations of descendants who followed him.

His original gravestone, if one ever existed, has long since disappeared.

Yet the story of his life survives. Not because of a monument. Not because of a plaque. But because researchers across generations continued asking questions.

Sometimes the most important discoveries are not about finding something new. Sometimes they are about recognizing that what everyone believes may not be entirely true. And sometimes the cemetery you’ve been looking for isn’t the cemetery at all.

The Patriot’s Son: How a Tombstone Changed an Ancestor’s Birth Year

Some genealogy discoveries happen in archives. Others happen in courthouses. And occasionally, they happen because a tombstone has weathered just enough for a hidden detail to become visible.

This is the story of how a ten-year search ended with a surprise that changed what I thought I knew about my fourth great-grandfather, Thomas Duer.

Last week, I shared my visit to the grave of my Revolutionary War patriot ancestor, John Duer, in Mahoning County, Ohio. While standing beside his restored monument, I reflected on the journey that brought him from colonial New Jersey to the Ohio frontier.

What I did not realize at the time was that another member of the family was about to provide an even more important clue.

Thomas Duer, John’s son, died in Trumbull County, Ohio, in 1829. Proving the relationship between father and son was not straightforward. In fact, it took me nearly ten years to assemble enough evidence to satisfy the standards required by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The challenge was that Thomas predeceased his father.

When John Duer’s will was written, Thomas was already deceased and therefore not named as an heir. Neither were Thomas’s children. At first glance, that omission appears troubling. However, records suggest that John had already divided portions of his property with Thomas years earlier when the family settled in Ohio. Tax lists, census records, church associations, and witness statements repeatedly placed the two men together.

Eventually, documentary evidence, combined with DNA results, confirmed the relationship.

Yet one mystery remained. Where exactly was Thomas buried?

Years ago, I contacted a local historical society and was assured that his grave still existed in the old Pricetown Cemetery. The former society president told me she knew exactly where it was because she had once tripped over the fallen stone during a cemetery cleanup project.

She explained that volunteers later repositioned the marker but could not recall its original location.

The story always bothered me. If the stone had been moved, how could anyone know where Thomas was actually buried?

Then another unusual event occurred.

While attending a genealogy lecture in Florida several years later, I noted on the sign-in sheet that I was researching families from Trumbull County, Ohio. Before the lecture began, I was called to the registration desk where a complete stranger introduced himself.

He had grown up in Trumbull County and wanted to know which families I was researching.

When I mentioned the Duers, he offered to visit the cemetery on his next trip north and photograph the grave. True to his word, he later sent me a photograph and refused any compensation for his time and effort.

The image was invaluable or so I thought.

The directions he provided to the cemetery turned out to be completely wrong.

When my husband and I finally attempted to visit the site ourselves this summer, we found ourselves driving in circles through rural Ohio. Roads did not intersect where we expected them to. Landmarks were missing. Several times we questioned whether we were even looking in the correct place.

Eventually, we abandoned the directions and relied instead on the cemetery’s coordinates.

That decision finally brought us to the cemetery.

The moment I located Thomas’s stone, something immediately seemed odd.

It was not where I had been told it would be.

The marker stood upright in the middle of a row rather than at the end. Nearby were fragments of other broken stones. Another marker of similar size and construction lay face down nearby. Looking carefully at the evidence, I began to suspect that the stone had probably been repositioned close to where it originally fell rather than being moved to an entirely different location.

That was interesting but it was not the real surprise.

The real surprise came when I compared the old photograph with what I was seeing in person.

Time had changed the stone.

Years of weathering and soil erosion had exposed portions of the inscription that were not clearly visible before. Looking closely, I could now read details that had previously been hidden.

There it was.

“Died Jul 29th.”

And beneath that:

“Aged 51 years.”

I almost collapsed.

For years, online information had reported Thomas’s death month as November. Probate records confirmed only that he died during 1829. No reliable source had ever provided his exact age.

Suddenly, I had both.

The new information shifted his estimated birth year from approximately 1775 to about 1778 or 1779.

Three or four years may not sound significant.

Genealogists know better.

A change of that size can affect which records belong to an individual, alter assumptions about military eligibility, reshape migration timelines, and even redirect research into earlier generations.

The most astonishing part was that this information had been sitting there all along.

The tombstone had not changed.

The inscription had not changed.

Only our ability to see it had changed.

Genealogy often teaches patience. We learn to wait for records to become available, for DNA matches to appear, and for new collections to be digitized.

But sometimes patience works in another way.

Sometimes the evidence is already in front of us, waiting for conditions to reveal it.

As I stood in that small Ohio cemetery, I was reminded once again why visiting ancestral sites remains so important.

Photographs are invaluable.

Online memorials are helpful.

But nothing replaces standing where your ancestor rests and seeing the evidence for yourself.

Two hundred years after Thomas Duer’s death, he still had one more story to tell.

All I had to do was show up and look.

What Patriot John Duer’s Tombstone Revealed

Engraving on the bottom of John Duer’s original stone, Covenanters Cemetery, North Jackson, Mahoning, Ohio; photo by Lori Samuelson 21 June 2026.

As America prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of its founding, many genealogists are taking a fresh look at the men and women in their family trees who witnessed the nation’s earliest years. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit the grave of one of those individuals, my patriot ancestor, John Duer.

What I expected to find was a tombstone.

What I discovered was a reminder that even after years of research, our ancestors may still have stories left to tell.

John Duer was born in New Jersey during the colonial period and served in the Sussex County militia during the Revolutionary War. Like many veterans of that era, he later joined the westward movement that transformed the young nation. By the early 1800s, he had relocated his family to northeastern Ohio, then part of America’s frontier.

For years I had wanted to visit his grave in Covenanter Cemetery near North Jackson, Mahoning County, Ohio. Since my husband and I were returning home from a genealogy conference in Pennsylvania, we decided to make the trip.

The journey did not begin as planned.

Following directions found online, we entered the cemetery address into our GPS and promptly arrived at the local police station.

Certain that a mistake had been made, I was relieved to find an officer leaving the building. When I asked where Covenanter Cemetery was located, he looked surprised. He admitted he was not a history enthusiast and knew little about local cemeteries, but he did remember reading a recent newspaper article about a small historic burial ground nearby. He provided directions and wished us luck.

As it turned out, luck was exactly what we needed.

The cemetery sits atop a hill surrounded by mature trees, overlooking the countryside. A recently installed wrought-iron gate marks the entrance. Someone had clearly invested considerable effort in preserving the site. The grounds were meticulously maintained, flowers had been planted, and an American flag fluttered beside the grave of my ancestor.

I stood quietly for a moment, reflecting on the path that had brought John Duer there.

When he arrived in Ohio, this area was still developing from wilderness into settlement. Roads were primitive. Communities were small and isolated. Yet families like his came seeking opportunity and land, helping to build the nation that emerged after independence.

Then my husband noticed something I had overlooked.

Near the bottom of John’s original tombstone was an inscription that was difficult to read. Looking closely, we realized it appeared to identify the militia unit in which he served.

This immediately caught my attention.

Although records had long established that John served during the Revolutionary War, I had never found documentation identifying a specific militia number. If the inscription can be fully deciphered, it may provide an entirely new avenue for research.

There was another surprise waiting.

Resting behind John’s monument was a separate stone engraved with the name “L. F. Gager Warren.” At first I wondered whether it might identify the mason who had carved the original marker. Curious, I carefully examined the stone and even tilted it slightly in hopes of finding additional information.

Unfortunately, the only occupants revealed by my efforts were two annoyed daddy longlegs who clearly preferred not to have their afternoon nap interrupted.

No additional inscription appeared, and the mystery remains unsolved. It appears that the broken stone was likely found elsewhere in the cemetery and used to prop up John’s stone as research from a distance cousin, Vicki Urban, uncovered that L. F. Gager was a Connecticut born stone mason who had relocated to Warren, Ohio but that was long after John had died.

Yet that is often how genealogy works.

We set out expecting answers and instead discover new questions.

As I walked through the small cemetery, I realized that the trip had already accomplished far more than I had anticipated. I had not uncovered a dramatic new record or solved a long-standing mystery. Instead, I had gained something equally valuable: context.

Standing beside John’s grave transformed him from a name on a pedigree chart into a real person who had lived through extraordinary times. He witnessed the birth of a nation, helped settle a frontier, and left behind descendants who still remember his story more than two centuries later.

The visit also reinforced a lesson I have learned repeatedly throughout my years of research: never assume you already know everything there is to know about an ancestor.

Sometimes the most valuable clues are hiding in plain sight.

A partially weathered inscription.

A forgotten marker.

A cemetery located somewhere other than where you expected.

Or perhaps a story that has been waiting patiently for generations to be rediscovered.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, I am grateful for the opportunity to remember one patriot whose journey helped shape both a nation and a family.

And little did I know that another member of the Duer family, buried just a few miles away, was about to reveal an even bigger surprise. More next week.

Hints for Family History Travel in Chaotic Times

The Agean Sea from Kos Island, 4 Apr 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

Last week I shared the story of our trip to Greece including my long-awaited journey to Kos Island, where my family lived some 2,000 years ago, based on mtDNA and family tradition. This week, I’m answering the questions I’ve been getting and offering a few practical tips if you’re planning a similar trip to anywhere in the world.

Let’s start with the obvious, how do you even get to a remote place like Kos?

Your first step is to determine a route. Kos is not on the standard cruise circuit. You have two options: fly from Athens (about 55 minutes) or take a boat from Bodrum, Turkey (roughly 15 minutes). We flew from Athens since we were already returning there from Crete.

Once you’ve figured out how to reach your ancestral location, the next step is getting around. You can rent a car if you’ve secured an international driver’s license or you can hire a driver.

I hire a driver. Every time.

Why? Because I don’t need the added stress of navigating unfamiliar roads, signs, and driving customs while trying to absorb a place that actually matters to me. A good driver knows exactly where to go, how to get there efficiently, and more importantly, what you shouldn’t miss. They often become your best local resource for food, history, and those small, meaningful stops you would never find on your own.

People always ask how I manage to find trusted drivers around the world. The answer is simple: I build relationships. Conferences, professional networks like Association of Professional Genealogists and LinkedIN, and years of working with people in different regions.

In Sweden, I hired a genealogist who also worked as a part-time tour guide for Gate 1 Travel. In Croatia, I was connected with a genealogist/archaeologist. In France and Germany, a sixth cousin I met at a conference volunteered.

Kos was different, I had no contacts. So, I took a chance through Travelocity, and it paid off. GetTransferKOS was excellent. Once the driver understood why I was there, he went beyond the standard route to our hotel and showed us sites my ancestors would have known. That’s the difference between transportation and experience.

Next question: hotels.

If I’m traveling with a company like Gate 1 or Trafalgar, I let them handle accommodations. But I almost always add extra days, before or after the tour, to explore independently. Our ancestors rarely lived in postcard destinations. They lived off the beaten path, and if you want to understand their lives, you need to go there too.

Ask your hotel concierge or desk clerk for off the beaten locales you should visit. When my Travelocity half day tour didn’t show up, the desk clerk called a colleague who arrived within 20 minutes to show us his beautiful homeland, along with fresh baked cookies his wife was making for Easter. He knew where the vineyards once grew on Kos and took us there. This was important to me as no physical records have been found to mark the location which was where my ancestors once lived:

Former Vineyard Site, Kos Island, Greece, 4 April 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

Money is another practical issue people overlook. If your family came from rural areas, carry some local currency. Credit cards aren’t always accepted, I ran into that repeatedly in Ireland and once in Greece when roadwork brought the internet down at the restaurant.

That said, I still prefer using a credit card whenever possible. With the right travel card, you’ll get a better exchange rate than most banks offer, and it gives you a clean, trackable record of your spending.

Now, let’s talk technology.

I use a phone plan that supports international travel. No roaming. I keep calls to a minimum, rely heavily on texting, and use my phone constantly for photos. Each night, I connect to hotel Wi-Fi and upload everything to Dropbox.

Why? Because I once lost photos in the backwoods of Mexico when I crushed my phone, and I don’t make the same mistake twice.

I also use Geni, my ChatGPT research assistant to help me identify photos when I get home. What was the name of the location of a statue of Leonis? The best part with this trip was the translations.

Asklipieio Archeaological Site, Kos Island, Greece, 4 Apr 2026, photo by Lori Samuelson.

There were no English markers as we toured Asklipieo so I took photos so I could later discover what we were looking at. Geni told me this means memorial markers, which makes sense as the next photo (below) shows recesses in a wall that likely once held those markers:

Security and customs were another big concern people raised.

We had no major issues though I’ll admit O’Hare International Airport tested my patience.

Coming back into the U.S., you have to retrieve your luggage, clear customs, recheck your bags, and then go through security again if you have a connecting flight. It’s inefficient, but it is what it is.

Customs itself took about 15 minutes. United Airlines had staff ready to help recheck bags quickly, and there were helpful Traveler’s Aid volunteers guiding people to their gates. Thankfully, there were no ICE agents in sight, just people actually trying to help travelers get where they needed to go. No chaos, just a system that could be better.My only issue? Exhaustion.

I forgot I had a tiny bottle of water in my bag, security flagged it. Then they asked if I had a laptop. I didn’t but I did have Kindles. That triggered another rescan.

Here’s the irony: every other airport we passed through: Fort Wayne, Vienna, Munich, Athens, Crete, Kos handled this without issue. Chicago? Not so much. You’d think one of the busiest airports in the world would have updated equipment by now.

Stateside, things can be just as odd. Earlier in March, we had “enhanced security” in Fort Wayne; meaning we had to walk past a dog just to enter the bridge. Two weeks later, nothing.

Welcome to consistency, American-style.

We do have TSA Pre Check but not Global Entry. I try to fly into Detroit rather than Chicago which has a much smoother customs with shorter lines. I’ve tried several times using the Mobile Passport Control app (free) but it never works for me.

Another question I’ve been getting: where next?

Honestly, nowhere overseas for now.

I’m not booking international travel until there’s a change in “leadership” in the U.S. I’m not interested in last-minute cancellations or absorbing costs because someone decides to escalate tensions. Add in rising oil prices and airlines cutting routes, and it’s just not worth the gamble at the moment.

Otherwise, I’d already be planning a trip to Barbados to walk in the footsteps of family lines from the late 1600s into the early 1700s.

For now, that one waits.

As for anti-American sentiment, no, I didn’t experience any hostility. What I did hear, repeatedly, was: “What’s wrong with Donald Trump?” Excellent question!

To their credit, people I met didn’t assume I represented every American viewpoint. That’s something we could learn from.

In the meantime, I have plenty of travel ahead, just closer to home. I’ll be presenting at the National Genealogical Society conference in Fort Wayne (hardly a trip for me!), along with events for Palatines in America and several venues across Texas, Utah, Minnesota, Kentucky, and the Midwest.

So no, I’m not slowing down.

Just adjusting the map for now.

Greece: Tourist and Genealogywise

A sculptural gathering of the twelve Olympian gods, seated and standing in hierarchical order, evokes the structure of divine authority on Mount Olympus. At the center sits Zeus, surrounded by the major deities who governed every aspect of ancient Greek life—from war and wisdom to love, the sea, and the harvest. Unlike mythological battle scenes, this composition presents the gods as a unified, if complex, family—ordered, powerful, and ever-present in the Greek world. Photo by Lori Samuelson 25 Mar 2026, Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece.

I’ve been getting quite a few messages asking about our recent trip to Greece, so I decided to put together a two-part blog with some background this week, and next week I’ll share recommendations if you’re planning your own adventure.

A week before our March departure, we received an email from our travel agent, Gate 1 Travel, telling us our cruise ship was stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. Translation: your trip might not happen.

Three days later, they gave us two options: cancel and get a full refund, or accept a revised itinerary: four days in Crete.

We went.

I refuse to let bullying politicians dictate whether I get to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors.

The trip itself? Smooth, except for the weather, which seemed determined to test our resolve. Intermittent downpours followed us as we climbed mountains in the cold. Where was Zeus when we needed him?

Storm clouds over the Parthenon, 25 March 2026, Photo by Lori Samuelson.

We made our way through Athens, climbed the Parthenon, continued on to Olympia, then Delphi where I picked up a cough that I chose to ignore, and on to Meteora. From there, back to Athens and a short flight to Crete.

And that’s where things got… strange.

I swear our hotel room in Crete was haunted. The first night, I had vivid, unsettling dreams. When I woke, my side of the mattress was halfway off the bed. I had to wake my husband to help fix it.

The next night? His turn. Same thing, odd dreams, followed by a thud as he hit the floor. His mattress was halfway off as well.

We’ve been married over fifty years. This has never happened. Not once.

Sahara Dust Storm before it got worse – seriously! Photo by Lori Samuelson, Crete, 1 April 2026.

Then came day three: a Sahara dust storm. Apparently they happen about three times a year, but this one, on April 1st, of all days, was next level. Nature’s idea of an April Fools joke.

Housekeeping had left our balcony door open.

We came back to a room coated in fine orange dust. My cough worsened, my eyes started itching and watering, and breathing became… challenging. My husband? Completely fine.

So now we know; I’m apparently allergic to the Sahara. Who knew?

Sahara Dust Storm when it went to white out? (red out?) conditions, Photo by Jim Samuelson, Crete, 1 Apr 2026.

Here’s the part that still gives me pause. Had we stayed on the cruise, we were scheduled to be in Santorini that same day. Cruise ships can’t dock there, so passengers rely on ferries and with that weather, those ferries wouldn’t have run.

We would have been stranded. No hotel. No luggage. No backup plan.

So… should I thank those bullying politicians?

Nope. Still not doing it.

One of the highlights of the trip was meeting a probable cousin at a small taverna in Crete. She’s a student at the University of Crete, originally from Kos and she looked exactly like me fifty years ago. Same dark hair, same eyes, same build. It startled my husband more than a little. She is even majoring in an area I did.

Maternal genetics don’t mess around even though I’m unable to prove we’re cousins.

The next day we flew to Kos Island, where I had booked a half-day tour through Travelocity. The company happily charged my credit card back in December and then never showed up.

Fortunately, the staff at the Kos Aktis Art Hotel stepped in and found a replacement: a wonderful guide from UniKos Tours.

He took me to what had once been vineyards, very likely the same land my family worked generations ago. Today, it’s a gypsy camp. The residents didn’t mind me taking photos, which felt like a small but meaningful connection to the past.

From there, we visited the Asklepieion of Kos, walked the mountainside associated with Hippocrates, stood beneath the tree where he is said to have taught, explored two medieval castles, stopped at Aphrodite’s temple where the sky promptly opened up and drenched us and found a perfect place to watch the sunset from a mountaintop.

It was, in a word, extraordinary.

Our return home, however, was anything but.

Parthenon at Night. Photo by Lori Samuelson 25 March 2026.

By then, my cough had worsened and my eyes were constantly watering. We spent a sleepless night in the Athens airport before flying to Munich (2.5 hours), waiting two more hours, then enduring a 9.5-hour flight to Chicago. After that? Two hours navigating customs and security, then sprinting to catch our final 30-minute flight to Fort Wayne. We made it with 23 minutes to spare.

Then came the 40-minute drive home.

Happy Easter.

Easter Monday was spent going from doctor to doctor in Auburn. No one had seen a “Sahara dust storm victim” before, which didn’t inspire confidence. My physician child kept telling me to just ask for allergy meds, but no one would listen. I kept getting sent somewhere else.

I finally landed in an eye doctor’s office, someone who actually knew what they were looking at, and I’m now on the mend.

Several locals have told me they’d never travel the way I do, for fear of getting sick.

I’d do it again tomorrow.

Life is what you make of it. Fear doesn’t take you anywhere worth going.

Next week, I’ll answer some of the questions I’ve been getting about traveling to places a little off the grid.