52 Ancestors 2026: At the Cemetery – Road Trip Destinations

 

Cemeteries can serve many purposes: parks for leisure and reflection, repositories of historical records, or places to honor those who came before us. Cemeteries such as Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York can also reflect the history of a city, displaying the wealth and prominence of its leading citizens. Others, especially older rural cemeteries, can feel like snapshots frozen in time after their communities faded away.

The Low Dutch Cemetery in Pennsylvania is one example. The Dutch-Huguenot colony either moved away or assimilated, the church connected to the cemetery dissolved and was eventually torn down, and the burial ground was simply left behind—a preserved glimpse of a late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century community.

This week’s prompt asked, “Whose grave would you like to visit?” If there were a “one-stop” location for my family lines, it would probably be Barton City Cemetery, in Barton County, Missouri. Many generations of Cassatts, Younts, Reeds, Fasts, Gilmartins, and McWilliamses are buried there. Most were farmers and respected members of their communities. Thanks to sites like Find-a-Grave, I can at least visit virtually, though one day I may try to make the thousand-mile trip in person.

I could also travel one county north to search for members of the Curry and Maddox families, although some of those cemeteries appear to be poorly maintained. That might become a challenge for another time.

One place I would especially like to visit, however, is not actually a cemetery. As far as I know, none of my ancestors are buried there. Instead, it is a memorial to Kentucky pioneers whose graves may never have been properly marked. The memorial is located at Fort Boonesborough State Park, which also contains a reconstruction of the original fort and settlement.

The fort, established by Daniel Boone and other settlers, became a center of late eighteenth-century Kentucky settlement, including migrants from the Conewago Colony. One of those pioneers was my 4th-great-grandfather, Peter Cossart. His journey began in New Jersey, continued through the Conewago Colony in Pennsylvania, and eventually led him and his family to Kentucky along the Wilderness Road.

Peter lived near White Oak Spring, about a mile south of the fort. According to family tradition, he was killed by Native Americans around July 1781 while out picking blackberries. His body was never recovered, so he apparently never received a formal burial. This memorial therefore serves as a place of remembrance.

Although Peter lived only a short time in Kentucky, his family somehow endured the hardships of frontier life before later moving to Ohio and establishing themselves in Warren County for several generations. We know relatively little about the family during the remainder of the eighteenth century. Peter’s wife, Maria, still had relatives in Kentucky, though many pioneer families suffered losses during the violent frontier conflicts that accompanied the closing years of the American Revolution.

Perhaps by visiting Fort Boonesborough, I could better understand the landscape and hardships faced by those early Kentucky pioneers.

52 Ancestors 2026: Unexpected – An Appreciation of Amy’s Prodding and Prompts

 

Genealogical research is full of twists and turns. Sometimes it’s a shady character, a surprising connection to deep history, or an unexpected migration. There have been plenty of such examples in this blog, but what surprised me most this year was how much my blogging and writing led to new discoveries.

I originally thought the weekly prompts from Amy Johnson Crow would be useful for quick summaries, while I spent most of my time breaking through brick walls and adding more and more names to my tree. Instead, the prompts pushed me to explore new territory and dig deeper into ancestors and families I thought I already understood. They also encouraged me to examine the broader context—the times and places in which my ancestors lived. Three areas I explored in particular were early settlements, migration patterns, and a deeper look at farming life in Barton County.

When it came to early settlements, I knew I had ancestors in New England and New Netherland, but writing these posts led me to dig further into the details. “New England” turned out to encompass a variety of Puritan families. I learned more about the Salem Witch Trials, naming conventions, and discovered that I descend from some of the earliest immigrants to Plymouth Colony (the Mayflower) and Massachusetts Bay (Winthrop’s fleet). I also explored my Huguenot line through family histories and narratives about the early days of New Amsterdam, as well as my early Quaker ancestors in Pennsylvania.

Of course, my ancestors were all immigrants, but their migrations didn’t stop at the coast. Early generations moved into the interior of the Thirteen Colonies, and later generations pushed even farther west. I had learned about routes like the Wilderness Road and the Oregon Trail in school, but they became far more meaningful when I realized that my own ancestors had traveled them. One unexpected discovery was the central role that Kentucky—first as a territory and later as a commonwealth—played in so many of my family lines. Perhaps that connection explains why I was drawn to the Bluegrass State for my education, even before I knew of my Kentucky roots.

With all these migrations, many of these once-distant family lines eventually converged in Barton County, Missouri. While I had long collected census data for these families, the depth of information found in those records—especially the agricultural schedules, along with land, probate, and death records—revealed far more than I had expected. These sources provided not just names and dates, but insight into daily life and the interconnected nature of these families.

In the end, it is hard to point to just one unexpected discovery—there were many. What surprised me most was how much progress I made simply by writing. The process kept me engaged, encouraged deeper research, and led me to explore topics in ways I might not have otherwise.

Not a bad year at all.

52 Ancestors 2025: Cemetery – Low Dutch Cemetery

 

For a genealogist, cemeteries are like gold mines—so much information literally carved in stone. Of course, mistakes can happen, and tombstones cannot be edited, but they often provide valuable clues about families and their communities. With so many burial grounds scattered across the country, how does one choose a single cemetery to focus on?

For me, the choice was the Low Dutch Cemetery not too far from Frederick, Maryland, just east of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This cemetery offers a snapshot of the Conewago Colony, a community formed by Dutch and Huguenot families who had first settled in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. As New Amsterdam (later New York) grew during the 1600s and early 1700s, farmland on Manhattan and Brooklyn became scarce. These families pushed westward and became some of the earliest European settlers in northern and central New Jersey.

The Conewago Colony was established in 1768 when some of these New Jersey settlers migrated farther west into what was then York County, Pennsylvania. The British victory in the French and Indian War had opened new lands beyond the original Atlantic colonies, particularly along rivers feeding into the coast.

Looking through the gravestone records posted on Find-A-Grave, I traced several family origins. These Dutch/Huguenot surnames appear frequently in the Low Dutch Cemetery, along with their original spellings and the New Jersey counties from which they emigrated:

• Brinkerhoff – Bergen County

• Bercaw (originally Broucard; also Brocaw) – Somerset County

• Cassatt (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Monfort – Hunterdon County

• Van Duyn – Hunterdon County

• Van Orsdel – Somerset County

Although these families lived in different counties in New Jersey, they clearly stayed connected. Intermarriages were common, keeping ties strong across county lines.

The history of the Conewago Colony also notes that many families later moved to Berkeley County, Virginia (now West Virginia), before continuing west along the Wilderness Road into Kentucky. The records of the 1780 migrations highlight several surnames:

• Banta – Bergen County

• Cosart (Cossart) – Somerset County

• Demaree (DesMarets) – Bergen County

• Duree (Durie) – Bergen County

• Voris (Voorhees) – Somerset County

These families left Pennsylvania only about twelve years after first settling there. Once again, they came from both Bergen and Somerset Counties, with some families—such as the Bantas, Durees, and Vorises—sending many more migrants than others. A few Bantas appear in the Southern Low Dutch Cemetery, while the Demarees are found in both Pennsylvania and Kentucky groups. Interestingly, Pieter Cossart and his family (my line) were the only Cossarts to migrate; the rest remained behind. His migration makes sense when we consider his wife, Marie Durie—her father (Samuel Durie), many of her siblings, and her mother (Wyntie Banya Durie, of the Banta family) also joined the migration to Kentucky. The stories of the Cossarts, Duries, and Bantas reflect the broader patterns of the Revolutionary era and early nationhood, when settlers moved westward as new lands became available (often while Native peoples were being displaced).

As for the Northern Low Dutch Cemetery itself, the church once located nearby is long gone, but its records have survived. Last year, after visiting the Gettysburg battlefield, my grandchildren and I toured the cemetery. Though it was heavily overgrown, we were able to locate the grave of Francis Cossart, Patriot (pictured).

The Conewago Colony no longer exists as a distinct community, but its legacy lives on through its cemeteries, its records, and its many descendants who blended into the broader population of the region.

52 Ancestors 2025: Wheels

 

This is less a story about wheels than about the lack of them.

The Cossart side of my family arrived in New Amsterdam by ship, mostly from the Netherlands. Seeking new farmland, successive generations moved westward during pre-colonial times—first to New Jersey, then to Pennsylvania, settling in the Conewago area east of Gettysburg. This mixed Huguenot/Dutch community was linked by family and religious ties. They stayed together during colonial times and remained close when the American Revolution began. Many were patriots; young men joined local militias, and my ancestor, Francis Cossart, was active in the Committees of Correspondence and served in the Pennsylvania legislature, helping to craft the state constitution.

With the Revolution came the opening of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, though not with the full consent of the Indigenous peoples who had lived there for generations. Daniel Boone had explored beyond the Cumberland Gap and established the Wilderness Road into Kentucky’s Bluegrass region. He and his brother Squire encouraged settlers from the colonies to emigrate west. The “Low Dutch” colonists took two routes: one down the Ohio River to the area now centered around Louisville, and one through the Cumberland Gap via the Wilderness Road to the region near Fort Boonesborough. My ancestors chose the latter.

A group of families left the Conewago colony and spent time around Shepherdstown in Berkeley County (now West Virginia) before making their way to Fort Boonesborough, Kentucky around March 1780. Their journey wasn’t by wagon (the Wilderness Road was more trail than road) so they packed their goods onto horses and traveled through dense forest. The group settled in the White Oak Spring Station area in 1781, building cabins and establishing farms.

Among these settlers was Pieter Cossart and his family. He had married Maria Durie, whose extended family included several Durie (or Duree) households as well as the Demarests (Demaree, originally Des Marets) and Bantas. But these were dangerous times. The British supplied weapons to Native American tribes resisting the loss of their lands. One attack on White Oak Spring Station in March 1781 killed four of Maria’s siblings: Petrus, Angenitje, Hendrick, and Daniel. Petrus’s wife managed to escape with their three children. Pieter Cossart himself was killed the following summer while out picking blackberries.

This was an era when travel to the frontier wasn’t along roads—it was over rough trails or waterways, and only in well-settled areas did actual roads exist. These were precarious times, and as the frontier moved west, so did the violent struggles between European settlers and Native Americans. This part of American history cannot be forgotten. At the time, colonial society largely believed in the settlers’ superiority, though some European and American philosophers viewed Indigenous people as living in a kind of natural state, free from monarchy, which influenced Enlightenment thought.

Coming from a family of early European colonists, stories like these are woven throughout my genealogical record. They are complex and difficult but important to understand, as we reflect on the times and acknowledge the errors of the past.

Wilderness Road picture: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1797882