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Genealogical society publishes final volumes of 'Tombstones of Sussex County, Delaware'

October 31, 2013
Pictured at the  Downstate Delaware Genealogical Society Presentation Ceremony are in back (l-r) Don McClyment, Thelma Folke, Roland Beebe, Cheryl Markiewicz, Sarah “Sally” Williams, and Judy Johnstone. In front are Milford Wiedmann; Noreen Koehler, president, Downstate Delaware Genealogical Society; Mary Catherine Hopkins, director, Milton Public Library; and Isabel Rifenburg, Tombstone Book chair. Volunteers not shown are Sandy Woods, Russell French, David Clendaniel, Jack Mitchell, Mary Ann Stumpf, Peg Walz, Ronnie Folke, Robert Markiewicz, Donald Wiedmann and Anne Allen. SOURCE SUBMITTED

The Downstate Delaware Genealogical Society just published its fourth and fifth volumes in its five-volume series of tombstone transcriptions, "Tombstones of Sussex County, Delaware."

A team of volunteers traveled many miles of roads throughout Sussex County searching for old family cemeteries and spent many hours with clipboard and pencil to transcribe information from the tombstones. Sussex County residents also contributed time and knowledge to provide information about the location of old family cemeteries.  Many old tombstones that were not legible to the naked eye were discovered to have valuable information, thanks to the magic of using a special rubbing paper and a tennis ball, a method brought to the attention of the Downstate Delaware Genealogical Society by Scott Sipple of Wm. V. Sipple & Son Monuments in Milford.

Cemeteries included in the volumes are from each of the hundreds in Sussex County - Baltimore Hundred, Broad Creek Hundred, Broadkill Hundred, Dagsboro Hundred, Georgetown Hundred, Gumboro Hundred, Indian River Hundred, Lewes Rehoboth Hundred, Little Creek Hundred, Nanticoke Hundred, Northwest Fork Hundred, and Seaford Hundred.

Volumes range from 337 pages to 567 pages with dozens of cemeteries and more than 11,000 names in each. All the volumes are indexed by surname. A similar project was undertaken in the mid-1980s in Kent County with the publication of a two-volume set of books published in 1989 by Raymond Walter Dill, William Martin Dill and Elizabeth Ann Bostick Dill: "Souls in Heaven, Names in Stone - Kent County, Delaware, Cemetery Records."

For anyone who is researching family history in Sussex County, these volumes provide not only historical information for future generations but also an excellent addition for a family’s genealogy reference library. To obtain these volumes, an order form can be accessed and printed by visiting http://www.downstatedegenealogists.org/resources/2013+ORDER+FORM+-+TOMBSTONE+BOOKS+$285+VOLUMES$29.pdf or by contacting Isabel Rifenburg at 302-542-4955.

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