Cemetery database boon for researchers

By Linda CarmanPrint Story | Email Story
WILLIAMSTOWN — A Lasell College professor with Williamstown roots and his students have presented the Williamstown House of Local History and the town with a database that was hailed at its presentation as a boon to genealogists. The professor is Richard Dodds Jr., whose parents, Dick and Meg Dodds, are active in the House of Local History. And Dick Dodds, a retired Mount Greylock Regional High School English teacher, was among four volunteers updating records for the oldest part of Eastlawn Cemetery. The others are Annette Jenks, Carole Welsh and Kay Sherman. “This will be fantastic for genealogists,” said Town Clerk Mary C. Kennedy at Dodds’ presentation at the Milne Public Library Monday. “Once we have this, we’ll wonder how we ever got along without it,” said Parks and Cemeteries Superintendent Chris Lemoine. “This helps everybody – families doing research, genealogists, funeral directors.” Library Director Pat MacLeod said the database will be valuable to the library. “This’ll be a wonderful thing to have,” she said. Volunteers last summer surveyed the old section and the cloverleaf at Eastlawn, recording 91 pages of information detailing the 475 lots, 1,595 monuments with inscriptions in five languages for 1,426 deceased people, including 55 veterans. Dodds, who graduated from Mount Greylock Regional High School in 1980 and Williams College in 1984, has a master’s in education degree from Harvard University and teaches computers at Lasell College in Newton. “We want people to be able to get to this data,” he said. “Someone doing genealogy and hunting an ancestor can click it and print it in Australia.” The database, he said, will encompass more records that can be pulled as needed and give stronger “data integrity.” Dodds was accompanied by students from his course in database management and design, Cynthia Chou, Edin Rizvanbegovic and Ken Wu, who have worked on the database for the past seven weeks. Seven of the nine students in the course signed up for service learning, work that benefits a community. The database was built after conferring with House of Local History members and town officials on the information they wanted to be included. People seeking a relative can, for example, proceed with only one name, if that is all they have. George, for example, will appear in a table, designed as first name, last name or middle name. Veterans can be sorted according to the wars they fought in. For example, two veterans, William B. Sherman and Levi Deacon Smedley, fought in the Revolutionary War, and Smedley fought again in the War of 1812, among four local War of 1812 veterans. The cemetery also holds 38 from the Civil War, one from the Spanish-American War, six from World War I, two from World War II, and two from unknown conflicts. One of those two, Marion Kerr, is presumed to be from World War I because he served with the 301st Ambulance Co., A.E.F. [American Expeditionary Force], which fought in that conflict. Lemoine also noted that medical researchers and historians can use the information to track epidemics. “In two years [in the town’s early history], 50 children died,” he said. People can also be found through their affiliations, such as the GAR [Grand Army of the Republic]. While more than 900 inscriptions are in English, as could be expected, a handful were in French, and one each were in Danish, German and Latin. The database was scheduled to be installed early this week. The next cemetery to be included in the database is Southlawn, being surveyed by volunteers from the South Williamstown Historical Committee. That project is twofold. The Community Preservation Act Committee has also recommended a $35,000 grant to restore and reset gravestones in Southlawn. There is an earlier link between Lasell College and Williamstown. The college was founded by Edward Lasell, a graduate of Williams and a former professor here, who is buried in the Williams College cemetery and for whom Lasell Gymnasium is named.
Share
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
View Full Story

More Stories

Sports
image description

Lee Executes Game Plan to Perfection in Quarter-Final Win

Sports
Sports
image description

Lenox Volleyball Reaches State's Final Four

Sports
Sports
image description

Mount Greylock Boys Win 3rd Straight Regional Crown

Sports
Sports
image description

Mount Greylock Girls Again Top Monson in Western Mass Final

Sports
Sports
image description

Lenox Sweeps Its Way to Western Mass Crown

Sports
Community News
image description

North Adams License Commission Sees Little Need for License...

Community News
Latest Stories
Previous Next

What's Trending?