Returning to Holy Cross Cemetery -- October 2014

One of the things I have been doing with some regularity is making trips to Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma to try and locate the many many MANY family members that have been buried there over the 150 or so years of the cemetery's existence.  Thanks to the San Francisco Colma Cemetery Index over at SFGenealogy.com, I can easily look up where and when family members were buried between 1887-2005 (the index actually goes up to 2012, but only records that are older than 10 years old are searchable.)  It's a great and useful resource, and I've recorded the names, dates, and locations for many of the family members so I can have a list handy when I go trekking around looking for gravesites.

Since Holy Cross is a large cemetery with about 40 separate sections and to date I've identified relatives in about 20 of them, I try to group my searches to two or three sections that are in reasonable proximity of each other.  Some trips are more successful than others as the row and grave numbering is seldom clearly marked and I can't always find where I'm supposed to be.  There are also the occasions when I DO find the right spot only to find there isn't a headstone to identify the plot, so the location is my "best guess".  On my most recent trip in November I did remember to grab my phone so I could use the database to help confirm my location which was helpful. 

I've learned from my trips and other inquiries that certain locations are mass graves either for the poor (Section A) or for those who were removed from Mount Calvary Cemetery when it was finally closed around 1940 (part of Section H.)  The older sections of the cemetery are a lot trickier than the newer ones as there are a lot of missing headstones (if there were ever headstones in the first place.)  Section M, where my great great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray is buried with her daughter Nellie is one such section.  When I visited in 2012 looking for Bridget, there was no headstone at where I believe she was buried.

Arthur Patrick & Kathleen Ford,
my grandmother Elizabeth
Coleman's first cousin and
his wife

I have, however, had some successes.  On a trip in October 2014, I found the markers for Nana's first cousin Arthur Patrick Ford and his wife Kathleen.  They're buried in Section G2 just a few rows away from Nana and Grandpa Murray.

Mullane family plot where my
great-great grandparents T.J.
Mullane and Mary Manning
Mullane are buried with
their descendants.

On the same trip I was also able to locate the grave of my great-great grandfather Timothy John Mullane in Section F.  T.J. Mullane is buried with quite a few other members of the Mullane family including his wife Mary, sons Thomas Michael, John Martin, and Edward W. Mullane.  Also in the Mullane plot are Margaret E. Mullane, the infant daughter of Edward W., her brothers Raymond and Edward J. Mullane, and Edward J. Mullane's wife Frances Dorothy Donahue Mullane.  Not all of the Mullanes are listed on the headstone, and from the design I'm guessing it was put in later than the original purchase of the plot. 
 
My last stop on this visit was to the mass grave for the Mount Calvary Cemetery internments.  My great-great grandfather John Murray and his daughter Lizzie Frances Murray were moved there from their original burial place.  There is a nice marker there for the over 39,000 people who were relocated when the cemetery was finally closed in 1940. 

My next post will detail a very successful and productive visit in February, 2015.