I am actively researching Whitaker, Porter, Ramsey, Demarest, Demaree, Arnold and others.

Any volunteer photo's I take may be used for your genealogy.

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Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands among the rest

Neglected and alone

The name and date are chiseled out

On polished marble 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 and 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 wrote the poem "Dear Ancestor" in 1906 while visiting the grave of his great-grandfather.

"The Soldier's Grave" Tread lightly, 'tis a soldiers grave, a lonely, mossy mound; and yet to hearts like mine and thine it should be holy ground. Speak softly, let no careless laugh, No idle, thoughtless jest, Escape your lips where sweetly sleeps the hero in his rest. For him no reveille will beat when morning beams shall come; for him, at night, no tattoo rolls its thunders from the drum. Tread lightly! For a man bequeathed, were laid beneath this sod, His ashes to his native land, and His gallant soul to God. ~Pearl Rivers~(pen name of Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson.)

As I stumble through this life,

help me to create more laughter than tears,

dispense more happiness than gloom,

spread more cheer than despair.

Never let me become so indifferent,

that I will fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child,

or the twinkle in the eyes of the aged.

Never let me forget that my total effort is to cheer people,

make them happy, and forget momentarily,

all the unpleasantness in their lives.

And in my final moment,

may I hear You whisper:

"When you made My people smile,

you made Me smile."

author unknown

You live as long as you are remembered. -- Russian proverb

Life's but a walking Shadow, a poor Play'r,

That struts and friets his Hour upon the Stage,

And then is heard no more; it is a Tale

Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury,

Signifying nothing.

from John Hackett's "Select and Remarkable Epitaphs on Illustrious and Other Persons in Select Parts of Europe, with Translations" @1757

"Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore" Ecclesiasticus 44:14

The Noblest Art Is That Of Making Others Happy. P.T. Barnum

"To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root."

--Chinese Proverb