CEMETERY BURIALS IN YATES COUNTY
Some years ago, during the 1990s, a new reading of the county's cemeteries was done and published in a series of six volumes. Hundreds of the books have been sold. Since then, some corrections and additions have been made, and the need seen for a new index that mentions not only deceased persons, but others who are mentioned in notes and on the grave markers themselves (spouses, parents, etc.). The original project contained the names, dates of death and other information on more than 40,000 people. The original books are still
available (from the Yates County Genealogical & Historical Society), but it's just cost-prohibitive to do a new edition in print. Therefore we decided to republish online.
With each list of burials is a note on the cemetery and a sketch map of its location. Now that this project is appearing in more editable form, the general public is encouraged to send all corrections and additions, or even full readings of any cemetery in the County, whether we have listed it here or not. The email address is the same as that used to request copies of documents indexed elsewhere on this site: <history@yatescounty.org>.
Available online is a general index for all names mentioned in all the individual cemetery lists. The index refers each name to a code denoting which cemetery the person is in; the codes can be looked up on the appropriate town header page.
All the cemeteries in the nine towns and three of the four villages in Yates County are now posted and included in the general index; the two Roman Catholic cemeteries in Penn Yan have been posted and have their own index (click below), but the names are not included yet in the general index, as it was felt that it was more important to get the remaining cemeteries posted, and do the index at the end. The very large village cemetery in Penn Yan is also on line, with its own index. I have updates for several rural cemeteries and will fix those as soon as the first round is posted.At present, there are 63,000 names in the general index and another 4000 in St. Michael's. Lakeview in Penn Yan contains at least 20,000 entries, for a grand total of about 87,000. All these names should be picked up by the search engine on the GenWeb page.
HELP WITH ABBREVIATIONS:
D ae 34/10/3 = Died age 34 years, 10 months, 3 days.
# = No actual gravestone found; information given all found elsewhere.
B1812 = Born in 1812
[ ] = Information not on gravestone; found elsewhere.
[MWF:] = information within brackets comes from one of the funeral record books of M.W. Fisher in Rushville.
Footstones are small markers placed at the foot of a grave, usually much smaller than the headstone. If a footstone bears any mark at all, it is usually only the initials of the deceased. Only footstones with initials not otherwise accounted for are listed here.
An entry in plain type means that person is buried in that cemetery. If the name is in italics, that means the person is mentioned in the entry, as a parent or spouse for example. If two or more persons of the exact same name are in one cemetery, the name will be followed in this index by a (2) or other numeral. If two persons of the same name are in separate cemeteries, or if one person has a marker in two cemeteries, then both cemetery codes are shown. All maiden and other names are indexed and cross-referenced back to the main entry.
For example, a gravestone like this:
Mary Jones Smith, wife of John Smith [daughter of James and Susan Johnson Jones], died Feb. 4th, 1872 in the 78th year of her age
and found in the Merrifield Cemetery in Benton, would yield these index entries:
Smith, John MFB
Mary (Jones) MFB
Johnson, Susan, see Smith MFB
Jones, James, see Smith MFB
Susan (Johnson), see Smith MFB
The main entry would look like this:
Smith, Mary (Jones) 1872 Feb 4 Wife of John Smith [& daughter of James & Mary (Johnson) Jones]; died age 78
It would be listed among the other graves in MFB, that is, the Merrifield Cemetery in Benton, a link to which you will find on the Benton town header page.