June 2025

Greetings Findagrave friends and followers, Unfortunately I have extremely sad news. My lovely wife of 37 years passed in February of a very long illness (cancer)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/280120441/evelyn-jolene-hawkins

She absolutely loved everything that she ventured to explore. She was a consummate genealogist, historian and author. A moment doesn't pass without thinking of her love and her enthusiasm for all things historical. Please bare with me as I adjust to my new walk in life. I have adopted and fostered many orphaned memorials in the past ten months as I had plenty of down time waiting in doctors offices and hospital rooms. If anyone sees any memorials in my memorial page that interests you, let me know so that I can transfer them.

**UPDATE NOTICE** In March 2022 my wife and I accepted the appointments of

Historians for the Town of Concord and the Village of Springville", both located in Erie Co., New York.

***Before you read on, I wish to add that my wife and I are now working closely with Maplewood Cemetery which is located in Springville, NY (Erie County Town of Concord). Many years ago I added several batches of Excel spreadsheet entries that contained thousands of memorials. Unfortunately, there were glitches in the upload that caused errors in the middle name column and the death date column. I have been laboring entry by entry to make corrections.. I'm sure that I have missed a few and will be most happy to fix them. Please be patient, use the "Suggest A Correction" feature, and please forgive me if aunt Lulu is listed with the wrong middle initial and death date.

***

Greetings! As a descendant of many of the memorials I have placed on Findagrave (FAGrv), I wish to foremost, honor their lives & memories by adding as much as I can to their pages. As such, this is what we can do in this regard.

*[Suggest A Correction] or (SAC) (edit) link found on the icon bar located just below the deceased persons name on their memorial page. If you have a suggested correction, please log on to Findagrave and follow the prompts.

If you wish to add a obituary, other memorial information

or to ask a question concerning the memorial, please use the "Suggest any other correction or addition" link option and I will respond asap.

*Private emails and questions left on my "Your Messages" page tend to be of a lesser priority and may take several days to complete.

*Findagrave has guidelines for transfers

(4 generations I think). I will gladly extend beyond the 4 Gen's if you are a serious researcher. Also I believe, that if you wish to honor a deceased distant relation (or a friend) than I will not stand in the way of your efforts.

*Some people believe transfer requests should not be made for memorials of friends or for family surnames strictly for genealogical purposes. I don't buy this notion! I believe that genealogists help us as a connection between the living & the dead, distinguishing who we are & whence we came. So, if you are researching a family name & see that I have entered numerous surnames of interest, I would be happy to transfer the whole lot to you,

(unless of course I am also researching the same name).

I would be be most grateful if other people would allow me the same courtesy. :^)

*In conjunction with the spirit of Findagrave.com I also contribute my personal families genealogical information to Werelate.org. Please see note below for additional information.

*You are welcome to use my photos for non-commercial purposes without obtaining my prior permission, as long as their use is within the rules and guidelines of Findagrave.com, and the ownership source provided is clearly stated each time.

*Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I am no longer able to do family lookups & other genealogical researches.

This also includes going to Libraries, Courthouses, & Cemeteries to search for records & tombstone information.

My circle of family names include.

Hawkins (All families living in New England

or with Northern US roots).

Parkinson, Allen, Batchelder, Bartlett & Leroy

(NY & New England)

Babcock, Clark, Tyrer, Knight, Wilbur & Irish families (ditto)

Earl family of Western NY,PA & NJ

Waite & Buchanan (Related to the Earl family)

Ahles, Warner & Reuter (German immigrants to Western NY)

Links of Interest:

Please visit Don Gentner's compilation of German immigrants to Western New York from Baden Germany.

The Wiesental~Springville connection

**

WeRelate.org is a free public-service wiki for genealogy sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy in partnership with the Allen County Public Library. It is the world's largest genealogy wiki with pages for over 2,065,000 people and growing. WeRelate is currently in beta. It is supported by volunteers and your tax-deductible donations.

**

Please check into this free website & consider sharing your memorial information with other researchers.

**

Obituaries posted to my memorials from the Springville Herald, Springville Herald and Journal and The Springville Journal are the property of The Town of Concord, Erie County, NY and The Concord Historical Society. They are maintained by the Town of Concord Historians Office as well as the Village of Springville Historian. Content of these historical articles are public records and may contain vital information pertaining to living individuals and possibly, erroneous information. Please use this information with discretion.

**

I do have quite a collection of cemetery records & photos of burials in Concord, Collins & parts of Sardinia/ Boston/ Colden (Erie Co., NY) cemeteries.

I'm slowly adding these records to FAGrv & WeRelate.org again as time permits.

My wife & I have submitted many of these records to the Town of Concord Genealogy Library aka

"The Lucy Bensley Genealogy Center"

located on North Buffalo Street in Springville, New York,

14141-0425

(PO Box 425)

DEAR ANCESTOR,

Your tombstone stands among the rest;

Neglected and alone.

The name and date are chiseled out

On polished, marbled stone.

It reaches out to all who care

It is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist

You died and I was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you

In flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse

Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled

One hundred years ago

Spreads out among the ones you left

Who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved,

I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot,

And come to visit you.

~Walter Butler Palmer~

I dreamt death came the other night

And Heaven's gate swung wide.

An angel with a halo bright

Ushered me inside.

And there! To my astonishment

Stood folks I'd judged and labeled

As "quite unfit", "of little worth",

And "spiritually disabled".

Indignant words rose to my lips

But never were set free,

For every face showed stunned surprise --

Not one expected me!

"There is a certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is,

if not an antidote, at least an alleviation.

If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere else."

-Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson (1850-94)