We did that...talked to someone at City Hall. That's how we found out the stuff burned up.
:-(
All this happened so very long ago...just after the turn of the century. My grandmother was just twelve, she was 42 when she had my mom. She died when she was 86 years old...about 25 years ago.
My mom has traced our roots back to the 1500s...we've visited many a grave. But we can't find these. The townsfolk literally went into the house and dispersed the property amongst themselves, along with the kids. Can you imagine?
An uncle eventually came and got several of the kids, but one couple had taken the baby and left town.
We know this is the right cemetery, my uncle took my mom years ago (he's been dead many years too) and showed it to her, so when I took her she recognized it. But if they ever had markers, they were likely wood and long gone now. And I'm sure they were just buried in wooden boxes. Likely someone else is buried over them.
Not necessarily. Funeral homes are real persnickety about that.
I'd chat up the morticians, if I were you. Start with Palmer & Marler Funeral Home. They may have records going back to 1898, and I'll bet they have plenty of records concerning that cemetery, even if the current owners have only been there since 1989.
Genealogy is fun!
Do the Great FReeper NW settlers have any experiences here:
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_021907WABmysterydustLJ.15d99c83.html
My grandfather's grandfather was the baby of a largish family. They had just barely moved to town when the house caught fire. A neighbor managed to get the baby out but the whole rest of the family died. Nobody knew who they were or where they'd come from. No relatives ever came to look. This was in 1800s Maryland, not exactly wilderness, but none of the local county seats had any idea who the family might have been...
There's at least one county in Virginia that has all their records because they refused to send them to the State Library in Richmond.
When the war was ending and Richmond burned, so did the library, destroying volumes of records.