Family History Day

Today was family history day.  I said earlier Jim's mom's side of the family came from this area.  Both sets of her grandparents were early settlers here and we were off to find their grave sites.  One set of great grandparents are buried in Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood.  There is a lot of history here.

We originally thought we could just find them. Wrong! Jim went back down to the office and got a better description of the location of their grave sites.

We found them!

Not too far from their site are some very famous "residents".  Wild Bill Hickok (left) and Calamity Jane (right) are probably less than 30 yards away.

Our next stop was back to Spearfish to find Jim's great grandparents and great great grandparents.

Thank goodness there was a book with the locations of the grave sites.  We were able to find his great grandparents pretty quickly.  This great grandmother was the first schoolteacher in Spearfish and his great grandfather was one of the first settlers here.

Then we found his great great grandparents.  They were the parents of Rebecca Pettigrew Evans above.  They were heading to California in a wagon train when Indians attacked. A party from Spearfish came out and saved them.  They decided to stay in Spearfish.