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Mar 14, 2008 4:00 pm US/Pacific
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One Tank Trip: Cemetery Sleuth
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
With nature in full bloom, maybe now is the time to check out some of our historic graveyards. The Old Sacramento City Cemetery has more than 25,000 burial sites. And besides some spectacular memorials, most are exquisitely landscaped by generations of mourners.
Now if you are worried about getting lost in here, go down to the cemetery office. They'll give you a tour map.
Many of the burial records from Sacramento's Cemeteries are now available here. The public is invited to look for lost relatives.
"They have people from 1852 there. These are the pioneers of Sacramento and it is really interesting," says Lois.
Volunteers like Jeannie Baldwin are spending hours trying to match up names and places.
"I have this whole slew of people who died in 1863 and I haven't a clue where they came from, or how they died or what they did or anything, so my plot, to try and find them," explains Jamie.
An index of this cemetery's records has just been completed.
"There's between 23,000 and 30,000," says Jamie.
Lois Dove says records of some of the funeral homes are also available.
"These are 1903 and it tells the age and her address, her cause of death, and they paid $80 and they were buried at Helvetia Cemetery," says Lois.
If you are searching for your family roots, this is a fabulous resource. But just walking around this cemetery is a tour of California's greats; governors and business leaders are buried here and many early settlers who came from all parts of the world.
It's not unusual to see tourists discovering the joys of cemetery sleuthing. And this time of year, there's an extra plus here, one of the best garden shows in the valley.
One of the reasons so many flowers have been planted at the cemetery is thanks to some prisoners. Inmates on work release programs tend to many of those gravesites.
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