Checking "Unusual" Sources

I often hear genealogists say they never check books in a certain area because "my families never lived anywhere near there."

I was at the Belle Isle Library in Oklahoma City recently and looked at what was available at his small local library in its 929 (genealogy) section. I saw an interesting book: Over My Dead Body! The Story of Hillside Cemetery © 1996 by Freda Carley Peterson. Since cemeteries are just about my favorite places to visit, I thought I'd visit this one in Silverton CO via the book.

Now I have never had family that lived in this area. But for nearly 20 years I did publish the Beckwith Newspetter which covered all the US. I found an unlikely entry for one of the Beckwiths:

Beckwith, Alicia Phulura temporary marker- June 23, 1907-May 17, 1908- Age 11 Months- On a Sunday at Oschner hospital in Durango, Alice, the baby girl of Bart (Barzilla) and Ethel Beckwith, was called away from earth by the angel of death. She had suffered intensely from bronchial pneumonia. Alice was born in Silverton, was the second Beckwith child to died before reaching the age of a year. Fred Carter officiated at Alice's funeral, held in the home of her grandparents in Silverton, William J. and Elizabeth Redda Pearce,a nd burial was at Hillside Cemetery.

Years ago I found this family in Silverton, San Juan Co. CO, but that was before this book was published. Who would think to check the very small genealogy collection in a satellite library of a metropolitan library system. But there the information is! and look at all that is provided in the short entry: complete name of child and parents, birth and death date and burial place of child, names of mom's parents and where they lived. A gold mine of information!

Don't forget to check the 929.1 through 929.3 section of your local library. You may just find a gem like I did!