Search billions of records on Ancestry.com
   

Transcription of St. Stephen's Cemetery

At Gretna, Milton Township, DuPage County, Illinois, USA

NOTES: (1) The cemetery photograph is part of a Geocaching photo collection, courtesy Groundspeak.com. (2) WorldConnect References link this transcription to entries in the WorldConnect Database, providing geographical linkages between persons who otherwise would not be connected to one another. (3) The Rootsweb Message Board Coverage provides a quick look at whether or not a surname has been the subject of significant discussion here on Rootsweb. (4) Cemetery Statistics include analyses of the cemetery population. (5) For more information on this resource, see "GNIS" in Wikipedia.

Introduction & Editorial Comments (1)

St. Stephen's Cemetery is referred to as St. Stephen's German Catholic Cementery in the place names index of the United States Geological Survey. This latter name is supported by the congretation of the church originally adjoining the Cemetery, St. Stephen's Roman Catholic Mission, was predominantly German Catholic. There was a period in the 20th century when the Cemetery was subject to vandalism and neglect, but sometime prior to the late 1990's Milton Township set out to restore the grounds. This restoration included surrounding the Cemetery with a fence, as shown in the photograph available by linkage above (see "Photograph of the Cemetery" in the Table of Contents).

Two transcriptions of St. Stephen's Cemetery are presented on this website. These transcriptions have been separately submitted to Rootsweb as User Databases.

Transcription 1 - Weiser Transcript

Tombstone records were copied by Frederick L. Weiser of Glen Ellyn, IL, Oct 28, 1950 and presented to the Martha Ibbetson Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, Elmhurst, IL.

A copy of the Weiser Transcription was prepared by Jean Moore as part of Project Wheaton History, 3 Sep 1973. A copy of the Moore Copy was prepared by Donald A. Sender, 20 Aug 1998 from a “poor” copy. Mr. Sender, having the title Township Trustee, was a Milton Township General Assistance Caseworker at the time. A copy of the Sender Copy was prepared by Courtland E. Yockey, 18-19 Dec 2004 from a high-quality copy provided by Richard Leroy who had obtained it from Mr. Sender.

Transcription 2 - Caretaker Transcript

The father of a genealogy researcher (Pat) used to maintain the Cemetery around 1950. Pat provided me with a copy of the plot map that she had obtained through her father.

Differences between the Transcripts

There are some significant differences between the two sets of data; therefore, both have been presented here as separate transcriptions. In the file submitted to Rootsweb as a User Database, there are references back to the Weiser Transcript where information differs between the two transcriptions. The Analysis section of this web is based on the Weiser Transcript.

NOTES: (1) This Introduction is a revision of the Introduction to the Weiser Transcript composed by Donald A. Sender. It does not include all information in that original Introduction, but also includes information that was not available in that Introduction as well. The original Introduction is not included here in recognition of Mr. Sender's copyright.

Download Transcriptions

The files available from are the exact files submitted to Rootsweb for upload as User Databases. These have not yet been accepted for inclusion. The data in each file is tab-delimited, meaning that information in one column is separated from that in another by a tab-character. There are two sections to each file; the top section contains "global information" that is common to the cemetery as a whole, while the bottom section contains information on each individual interred.

Weiser Transcription

Caretaker Transcription

These links are to files in the mindspring.com domain.

As of 31 Dec 2004 ...

Representation of Surnames by Rootsweb Message Boards

This also provides a full listing of Surnames in the Transcription (based on the Weiser Transcription)

Surnames with associated message boards

Beck | Beckel | Becker | Bittner | Burbank | Damm | Dieter | Elek | Gabel | Geller | German | Grom | Hahn | Hammel | Heisler | Hentges | Klein | Klock | Kohn | Kramer | Krapf | Kriege | Lemert | McDonald | Meyer | Miller | Mittman | Moore | Muller | Murray | Nagel | Ott | Ramer | Reder | Rehm | Rickert | Sauer | Stark | Voll | Warner

Surnames without associated message boards

Benkeht | Jemmison | Ledderman | Lenertz | Muehlfeld | Oberhard | Schaffauer | Wershing | Wirlehing

German → English for the Transcription

Time
Jahre → Years | Monat → Months | Tage → Days

Months (see also "Month" Wikipedia article for month translation links)
Juni → June | Mai → May | März → March

Relationships (see also "Family" Wikipedia article for close relationship translation links)
Toch von (or) Tochter von → Daughter of | Sohn von → Son of
Frau von → Wife of | Vater und Mutter → Father and Mother

Aerial Photography showing the Cemetery and surrounding area

DuPage County, Illinois has produced a database of high quality aerial photographs coupled to an annotated overlay and interactive map browser which can be accessed via the Survey Control Map link located on the County's GIS Map Gallery page. In order to respect the County's copyright, I will not reproduce images from the database here. However, I am also unable to provide stable links to particular magnifications of a particular map segment. Therefore, I've provided a start to finish string of URLs below that should get you to where I would think is a good starting place for exploring the area "by plane". If you need or desire to start from scratch at the GIS Map Gallery page, an interactive Yahoo map of the region will be helpful. Each of the following links should open in the same window; I believe you need to be able to accept cookies for this to work properly.

  1. Survey Control Map: http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp
  2. You do not need to check anything on the Add Layers panel because the settings are encoded in the URLs shown here.
  3. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&map.x=185&map.y=117&layerlist=layers
  4. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&map.x=165&map.y=190&layerlist=layers
  5. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&map.x=216&map.y=181&layerlist=layers
  6. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&map.x=198&map.y=191&layerlist=layers
  7. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&map.x=207&map.y=190&layerlist=layers
  8. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&Layer1=on&map.x=199&map.y=163&layerlist=layers
  9. http://maps.dupageco.org/maps/benchmarks/benchmarksmap.asp?mapAction=zoomin&Layer8=on&Layer7=on&Layer6=on&Layer2=on&Layer1=on&map.x=220&map.y=252&layerlist=layers
  10. At this point, the dark mostly rectangular thing in the center is the Cemetery. The white spots are headstones. From here you can zoom in, zoom out, or fly around to see what's in the vicinity. Note that unlike some other resources of this kind, the land parcel information has not (yet) been integrated with the images and annotations.

RETURN TO ENTRY PAGE

Web composed by C. Yockey Dec 2004. For detailed author and revision information, see the source information for each page.

Amaya browser/editor logo