Reviewed/updated - 6 September 2026

As of late, I have not been receiving any alert messages generated by the FindAGrave Personal Messaging System.

I suggest ,if you have sent me a message in the recent past via the FindAGrave personal messaging system, and I haven't responded back to you,

please contact me direct via my email instead

- mlfisher 2025 @ outlook.com - drop the dashes & tighten up the spaces - this is an anti SPAM tactic - between the charactors in my email address.

Please include the name & Memorial Number associated with your questions.

I'm sorry for any inconvience, some things are beyond repair and my control !!

First & Foremost

Please note: Any negative comments submitted will be forwarded to Find A Grave. This includes all "snide degrading remarks" directed at me via all ways of communication.

I'm not yelling - the all caps font is solely for emphasis !

PLEASE,PLEASE,PLEASE - ALWAYS USE the EDIT FUNCTION BUTTON FOUND ON THE MEMORIAL WHEN YOU ARE REQUESTING A TRANSFER OF THAT MEMORIAL.

THE SAME STEPS NEED TO BE FOLLOWED FOR ALL EDITS.

NO EDITS WILL BE ACCEPTED WITHOUT SOURCES.

ALL SUGGESTED EDITS MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY ACCURATE VIEWABLE DOCUMENTS - ANYONE WISHING TO SEE THEIR EDITS APPROVED CAN ADD A COPY OF THE DOCUMENT TO THE MEMORIAL YOURSELF OR BY SENDING ME A COPY OF THE SOURCES VIA EMAIL OR BY INCLUDING A WRITTEN SOURCE CITATION VIA YOUR SUGGESTED EDIT - REFUSING TO SHARE YOUR SOURCES WILL RESULT IN YOUR EDITS BEING DENIED . TELLING ME YOU DON"T HAVE THE TIME TO FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS,AS SET FORTH BY THIS WEB SITE, IS A POOR EXCUSE. DOING THIS WILL ENSURE THE ACCURACY OF YOUR SUGGESTED EDITS PLUS, YOUR EDITS WILL BE ACCEPTED MORE QUICKLY !!!

Dropping short notes to me via "suggest another correction" - making suggested statements without anything to back up your information along with no contact information back to you, means - I will delete your message - so It's fairly easy - If you have the time to send me a message - send your sources too !!

Thank You !!

"Trust is earned - it's not an entitlement" .

Some May Wonder...Who Am I ?

Join me while I celebrate over 55 years of researching my families history & 25 + years in helping so many strangers who we now call friends , in discovering their own families stories !!!

I started these journeys at a very young age; visiting the cemeteries in New York and Pennsylvania with my Grandparents Jack and Anna Hampson Burns ; where my ancestors and relatives were buried . They both instilled in me the importance of knowing & remembering my family's past and the lives of those who came before us. They also learned not to feed me scrambled eggs before a long

car ride !!

• My Maternal family lines have lived in Western Pennsylvania since 1870, when my Great Great Grandfather Roger Hampson immigrated here from Lancashire County, England. Roger and his wife, Annie Flinn have been the most inspiring to me. The New York branches, the Flinn's arrived there as early as 1848 from England and Ireland.
• My Paternal line 1st arrived in 1737 to the U.S.A aboard the "Charming Nancy " , carrying my 7th Great Grandfather , Hans "Jacob" Schumacher and members of his family. The family would be among the 1st settlers in the great wild lands of Northampton and Lehigh county,Pennsylvania plus a number of sons and grandsons would later become Revolutionary War soldiers . One of his grandsons served with General George Washington, while his forces were camped at Valley Forge & sadly,he perished there during the horrible winter of 1777-1778. I never expected to learn this much about my Dad's family & I know if Dad was alive today he would be so proud of his ancestors and their accomplishments.

After the great age of using only pen ,paper, postage stamps & far away libraries to do research work , just like that, along came the INTERNET ! I started working online as a local volunteer with the original "Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness/RAOGK" website operated by Doc and Bridget Schneider, working with them for over 10 yrs until the site ceased operations. I've continued as a volunteer researcher, contributor, Cemetery Transcriber on Rootsweb ,Pa-Roots and the USGenWeb Project in Pennsylvania.

With over 55 years experience as a genealogical history researcher; creating memorials here on FindAGrave was a wonderful opportunity . To me this isn't a race, It's a quest to create accurate, useful meaningful memorials for those who have gone before us , for all who find them here. I've been honored to work here with many really wonderful people & I will continue to share these memorials with their rightful family members and with my various cousins.

Keep In Mind...

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated , YES, someone actually thought it would be funny to start a rumor that I had died !!!

• I don't chase after the obituaries of the recently deceased-except when it involves my own family members or close family friends. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with reading the local obituaries everyday and in sharing all of that on Find A Grave. Just take your time & follow the rules set up here by the owners of the web site.
• Some of the memorials that I currently manage were transferred to me by retired gravers and from the accounts of gravers who have passed on to the great beyond, may they all rest in everlasting peace.

So with these thoughts in mind...please ,remember these -

• 1st- "Genealogy Without Documentation is Mythology" and "If You Can't or Won't Prove It ,Don't Claim It As Fact ". My Grandmas favorite saying , "Please and Thank You, Opens Many Unexpected Doors".
• 2nd- A word of advice from this memorial manager-Always check, double check & recheck all research which is presented to you by everyone. Never take anyone's research as being 100% factual without reviewing the information for yourself . Doing this is not meant as an insult towards anyone - that is how"fact checking" works. Take all offerings of additional information with thanks & always verify with supported documentation from multiple sources,if possible, and list your sources accordingly .
• 3rd- I respectfully request that anyone posting family photos, birth records, death records, marriage records & obituaries to memorials that I manage , PLEASE use the caption area for those photos & records to cite the full and complete source citation. - do not post personal family photos that don't belong to you...so, what if you borrowed it or "lifted" a persons photo from someone's family tree...don't post it on a memorial that I manage unless you have explicit written permission from the photo owner to use that photo anyway you choose to use it. In doing so, you'll also risk getting coached and /or banned from the site for violating copyright rules .
• A proper source citation for a birth or death certificate would be ,for example- Pennsylvania Death Certificate Number -XXXX; Department of Vital Records; Harrisburg ,PA. NOT Ancestry .com or FamilySearch /LDS, they are repositories .
• If you have an obituary for a person ,I will accept photos when the name of the newspaper ;the town, county, state it was published and the date it was published is included. As of today, obituaries that were published BEFORE 1927 fall in the Public Domain and are no longer under copyright laws and can be used freely by all. All obituaries published AFTER 1927 must be transcribed for inclusion in a memorial biography minus all information pertaining to any living person named in that obituary ,except for surviving spouses. If you don't want to transcribe a copyright protected obituary-email it to me and I will gladly do the work for you and credit you for sharing the information.
• 4th - Now if you feel you are better than everyone else and following my requests and the guidelines of this web site ,is beneath you...don't bother posting your photos and documents...keep in mind-if you send edits without the proper necessary source citations...your edits could be denied ! This also refers back to the " snide remarks". THANK YOU for targeting me - doing so means you are not HARMING someone who can't defend themselves against your sour ,snobby, mean attacks ! Yes, thank you very much !!
• 5th - Please refer back to what I wrote earlier - SERIOUSLY - SORRY ,I really refuse to take any crap from certain pompous a$$holes who do nothing but lie & cheat their way thru OUR LIVES - Kudos to that person from Central PA - YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A BIG BULLY - Many of us have had you pegged for YEARS - you should face the fact that you aren't fooling anyone - anymore !
• For the folks who use this site & continue to share the information freely with everyone ,THANK YOU . YOU have the never ending gratitude of 1000s of researchers who use this site on a daily basis. I think playing together nicely in the genealogy sandbox takes into account spotlighting the good work others are doing. Remember the active members of this site are volunteers. We work very hard at what we do; from creating & maintaining memorials,to fulfilling photo requests. They spend their time & their money to do this out of a shared passion for family history ; we do this freely, in order to memorialize those who have gone before us - many memorials are for family members , our friends and total strangers ; created here in a lovely ,honorable & respectable way.
• I call myself a caretaker of memorials, I don't "own" any of them and I try to care for the memorials ,as if I were related to all of them.
• 7th - IT'S 1st COME 1st SERVED REGARDING ALL TRANSFER REQUESTS - Always use the EDIT tab when requesting a transfer - Please don't just send me a message as I don't always get notified because those notifications always end up in my SPAM email ,where they are lost forever !!
• Explain your complete relationship & we'll go from there. Keep in mind, simply stating that someone is in your "family tree" DOES NOT ENTITLE you to anything - no matter what you say - you can't own every memorial in the county ! You can create a Virtual Cemetery to gather everyone you'd like together in one happy place ,get a grip and realize, you can't own any of them !!
• 8th - I follow FindAGrave's updated 2021 Required Transfer List, which can be found on the web site under "HELP" and "Transfers".
• Noting - I will not transfer memorials for folks who are related to my own family lines.
• 9th -The Flower Token option is for saying things like "I loved you", "We Miss You", or adding a puppy dog to a childs memorial & honoring military services with a flag ,it's not for OBITS or EDITS to memorials ,it's just as easy to send me the Edit and then add a Flower to the memorial too !
• 10th - If I have made a mistake...remember I'm human too... or if you would like me to add something please let me know through the edit tab for that memorial - don't forget to include your valid sources !
• Again,any rude condescending attitudes and remarks will immediately be reported to the web sites administration team - just be polite all the time - learn to say "PLEASE" and maybe follow it with a sincere "THANK YOU" , it makes all our lives so much easier :D

Remember...Sources, citations, friendly conversations and discussions are always welcome! If you can't be Friendly and/or if you act like a pompous idiot...don't bother me or anyone else for that matter and go away .... FindAGrave is a friendly community !

THANK YOU to all my followers and even those members who lurk behind me watching after every single step I take... it's sort of heartwarming to know that some folks prefer to keep their laser scopes focused in my direction, while I'd prefer just a simple - "Thanks".

~~~~~~

Philippians 2:3 & 4

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ."

I'm here to help in any way I can.

I'm open to free flowing rants, short Q & As or just an unbiased 2nd opinion if you need one...I'm here for ya,just ask me nicely !! Yeah, I know, I can talk alot...is that really such a bad thing ? !!

LOCAL CEMETERY UPDATES in Jefferson County,Pennsylvania

CALVARY CEMETERY ~ PUNXSUTAWNEY

As of July 2012, all 9 sections have been fully photographed and uploaded to the cemetery database. There are 1000s of unmarked burials there. Additional work is being conducted to identify those burials.

CIRCLE HILL CEMETERY

A full photo survey was COMPLETED in Oct 2010.

There are 1000s of unmarked burials there and additional work is being conducted to identify these burials. In 2025 a new project is being conducted by another local volunteer, to add even more information to the growing Find A Grave database for the Circle Hill Cemetery. She is currently tracking down the burials with missing grave markers and adding plot numbers.

Be Safe - Stay well and Happy Hunting Everyone !!