Witching & Searching…

On August 21st, a cool summer Saturday morning, I met with other cemetery enthusiasts, My dad, Terry Burnett, Audrey Jones, and George VanMeter. We worked to try to locate any sunken stones in the areas where we suspected some of our “missing family” to be laid to rest. We probed and dug! Unfortunately we only found a few stones. George found some rubble of stones near the back fencing we are still unsure if they are potentially bases to some stones as they had crisp edges but we could not find any markings on them; so these remain a mystery.

My friend and fellow genealogy buff, Audrey Jones came out and we finally got to “witch” the cemetery. Audrey has experience doing this in the past and willingly offered to come and do it at Bethany. So I loaded up my re-made plat book and highlighted the areas where we suspected some of our missing people were buried at. I walked with her as she witched those areas and to our surprise we found a decent amount of “voids in the ground” which suggest a coffin beneath. We marked them with flags, took pictures, as well I marked them on my map. We probed with rods where their headstones may have been but no luck. We are sure there are many buried here that have never had a stone which is sad. I will also add that Audrey is highly involved with the Pike County Geneological Society that is located in Bowling Green; take a visit and become a member!

The fun part of this witching was when Audrey let me take the wires. She explained to me how to hold them and what to look for. As we stood in an area that we suspected people to be buried, she had previously walked and found nothing. Almost immediately after taking my first few steps those wires crossed. So we spent another 10 minutes or so walking the area to find 4 more voids. This was quite earie and exciting to me at the same time. Now its time to attempt to get more solid information on these areas where we found voids and assume people are buried…to back up the findings.

All in all, we were walking the cemetery for a few hours and even though we didnt find as many stones as I was hoping, I still beleive it was a productive day…and I always am looking for an excuse to wander in the cemetery anyway 😉 .