Ancestry and Geocaching

Here’s me at the gravestones of my great-great grandparents

and my great grandmother in Wisconsin on Saturday,

October 17.

Ancestry and Geocaching

By Allan Olson

A month or two back my wife suggested a perfect vacation for the two of us – indulging in thing we both enjoy – for her it ancestry research and for me – geocaching, a win-win scenario for both of us. The only hitch was who could watch the kids – then we had the great brain storm idea of having our niece watch them since we help supply this college student with food staples she will help us with what we needed.

Everything fell into place – rather nicely for a change, no kids got sick or any other unforeseen incident that would’ve prevented us from heading on our trip, the weekend we picked was intentional, MEA – no school for kids. So our niece wouldn’t need to deal with getting them to school and back home again – also another bonus was her class schedule was light so all was good.

We left home Thursday morning and en-route to our destination we took care of a couple appointments and then headed to the neighboring cheese state –Wisconsin. Driving through that state over the few days we were in town I came to realize a couple things – one - that the farming industry seems to be alive and thriving in that state, two – that in terms of geography it is similar to our great state of Minnesota, three – people really do like the Packers and finally that most of the state has a strong smelling odor – which is very likely related to point number one.

Our plan for the weekend was simple we were to eat at places we couldn’t eat at in our immediate area – absolutely no fast food joints – two we were going to sleep in and finally we would be visiting cemeteries in search of long deceased relatives and of course go searching for some geocaches.

On Friday we did manage to sleep in and I spent some time in a large pool – which I had to myself. When we finally got moving it was time to search for my wife’s relatives, armed with names and a photo of one gravestone at a little town near Stevens Point, Wi we set off on foot searching and looking at every gravestone in the place up and down every row. We searched and searched and while we found a couple names she was looking for – not the specific ones she wanted and not the one we even had a photo of and after two hours we gave up – unwillingly - and by the time we were done my wife was beckoning for them to reveal themselves – jokingly of course. We headed back to Stevens Point to yet another cemetery – this one, many times larger than the previous one, “we will just drive around and see if we get lucky,” my wife said after looking at the directory that only had plot numbers and no names. We pulled forward – literally only a tires length past the caretakers building and we were able to find these family members. Now why couldn’t the others have been this easy?

The rest of the day was spent geocaching and by that time it was only a couple hours left of daylight since we had such a late start.

For Saturday, we decided that we needed to get moving earlier than the previous day, especially since we had about an hour of driving and two cemeteries to look at – since we weren’t 100% certain which one my relatives were in. On Friday I talked to my mother and she gave me some information about some family that were still in the area – so I decided that I would just call these people to see if they could narrow it down for us and hopefully meet some distant cousins that I’ve never seen. Unfortunately they were out of town but they did narrow it down to one specific cemetery and while they didn’t remember where in the cemetery  these relatives were laid to rest - aside from their grandparents/parents - it did at least save some time checking only one cemetery instead of two.

Once again we set off on foot – easily found my grandmothers brother – since that was the one they knew and after about an hour of searching, giving up and driving out – we found it. In addition we found that my great-great grandparents had several children never making out of childhood and one that lived into his 30’s. We spent some time cleaning up the graves as best we could along with taking photos and GPS coordinates – like we did the previous day.

Our ancestry mission for the day was fulfilled – now it was time for some more geocaching fun. We set off in search of more gadget caches – that my wife thankfully had the skill set to figure out with some time I might’ve been able to crack them – but it’s likely I wouldn’t have had the patience.

On Sunday we left the hotel before daylight – our target was Stockholm township - about an hour southwest of St. Cloud, where my third great grandparents were according to Ancestry records buried. We checked one little cemetery and then moved on to the larger one behind the church and while there made contact with someone who provided me with a name of a person who had the records. I made the call and left a message and we began our search – to no avail once again. By the time we were done searching I fully understood my wife “calling” for her relatives two days prior. That evening I received a return phone call and after some searching through his records he informed us that my ancestors were not buried there. These were my first relatives to have come over from Sweden and unfortunately it’s back to square one to find their final resting place.

The weekend was fun – the kids survived and so did my niece – so does that mean it’s time to start planning another trip?

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.