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the Decker Journey

mark of Jan Broersen Decker

My Journey

October 2009

The biggest news that I have for October revolve around my trip to Adrian, Michigan to find details on the families of Uri & Experience (Baker) Decker and Harley Redfield & Marenda (Oles) Decker.    Uri was Harley's uncle.  Both men were born in New York, but lived most of their lives in Adrian, Lenawee County, Michigan, and raised their families there.

Having only a weekend to do research (October 10 & 11), I had to do things very strategically.  I was able to research census records online, and also quite a few birth and death records for the late 1800's to early 1900's have been showing up online.  Since the county clerk's office was not open for genealogy research (even on Monday if I'd stayed), it came down to spending Saturday at either the library or the historical society.  I chose the library, figuring if needed I could wander over to the historical society later.  It wasn't necessary.  I zeroed in primarily on the burial records for Lenawee County which were recorded in several volumes, and were compiled in the 1930s and 1940s (with updated versions for some cemeteries).  This was exactly what I needed, because the primary thing that I had available to do on Sunday was visit cemeteries.

In looking through the families, there are quite a few names to research.  There were marriages to Wood, Bulson, Smith, Fleming, and more.  In going through the records, my intent was to transcribe all Decker burials, but also include many of the related names, especially those that were individuals that I recognized as being related.  There were a number of Wood families, and a great number of Smith families, making complete transcription of those records impossible in the time that I had.

That evening (October 10) I then headed out to a couple of cemeteries and began photographing headstones before retreating to my hotel room to prepare for the next day.  I had to determine the order in which I wanted to visit each of the cemeteries, as well as get directions so that I could locate them the next day.  I decided to visit the smaller cemeteries outside of town first (in the outlying townships) that would have fewer graves so that I had to do less walking while the morning grass was still wet.  It was a good plan.  Ultimately in the afternoon I spent many hours walking around Oakwood cemetery looking to find the various names.  Although the cemetery is divided into "blocks" it still took quite some time to find many of the graves here.  It is a large cemetery.  Fortunately the weather was very nice for this visit in October (it had rained all day Friday).

Overall this was a very worthwhile trip for me, and I may have to return.  I'd like to spend some time at the historical museum, and there also was much information to be found at the library by looking through the newspapers on microfilm.  I found some particularly interesting information on the Driscolls (Uri's granddaughter Mary Turner married Joseph Driscoll).  There's bound to be much more information here - when I have the time to look for it.

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