52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week #31 Theme - Help.   

Genealogists/ Family Researchers  are known for generosity and willingness to help others. 

Here is the long story of a helper who went the extra mile to help with our McGill Family research. We knew from Bible and baptism records that Gt Grandfather, Daniel Patrick McGill, had a sister, Bridget Jane, about 9 yrs. older than he was.  Daniel and his siblings were orphaned a few years earlier. Bridget Jane was in one census in Iowa after they came from Canada, age 14, living with brother, John. S. McGill, in 1860, Lura, Cass County, Iowa. Then she was never found in records again, although we searched all available. In Daniel's Bible she wrote, "Study well the lessons taught in this book. They will be worth more to you, my brother, than though I gave you the whole world.  From your sister, Jane.  Grove City, Iowa, Jan. 23, 1864."   Bridget Jane would have been 18 at that writing.  Very touching, but we  never heard about her after that date. 

Finally I searched "Find a Grave" for Iowa and found a grave in Wiota Cemetery, Cass Co. Iowa, for a Bridget McGill, but the  transcribed information said "wife of..." then the transcriber could not read the rest of the inscription.  The photo showed that it was all blackened with moss and age. I knew that if she had married, Bridget's surname wouldn't be McGill, so I wrote to the volunteer  in Iowa who had taken the pictures of the graves. I told her the possibility of our Bridget, but that no one could make out any words. Wiota was a cemetery that was near to where Grove City was once located.  I live in the Atlanta GA area and have never had a chance to visit Iowa. 

So my new long distance friend went to the cemetery three times, over a period of weeks, cleaning and transcribing what she could from the stone.  Sadly, it was broken, but she propped it in place for photographs.  I'm showing the pictures of her progress, before, middle, and after.  She has now posted them to  Find a Grave, and my story there memorializes "our lost girl" Bridget.  Rather than "wife of ..." we found she was daughter of  P & M McGill (Patrick and Mary).

Transcription:  Bridget J. dau of P & M McGill   Died Oct. 31, 1868  Aged 22 Y. 6 M.

Her brothers, Daniel and John would have chosen and had the stone inscribed. If not for a kind lady who volunteered to help, we would never have known about this memorial and we now have the correct information on our 2 Gt Aunt, Bridget Jane, at Find a Grave.