Know Your Roots
Yesterday I was on my way home to Knoxville from visiting family in Northwest Ohio. I figured I’d take a detour and try to find the origin of my Cochran ancestors. The first record I’ve been able to find of any Cochrans puts a James and John Cochran in cabins in what would become Higginsport in 1819, when a Stephan Colvin moved in.
There’s a stream north of the town named Cochran Run. It’s not much to look at.
James Ziba Cochran, the first recorded Cochran in our family tree, was born in Higginsport in 1824. His son, James Mason Cochran, was born in the same town in 1854. Sometime after that they pulled up stakes and moved west.
I stopped at the cemetery in Higginsport to see if I could find any other ancestors. It was in shoddy repair; gravestones toppled and illegible, many markers destroyed. I looked at every single stone I could find to see if any of our people were there. They might be; there are many unmarked graves and many with just a small, square, marble marker with a number on it. There was no sexton to ask and no parking except at a home business (a trailer with a crude “bait shop†sign) next door.
I’m not holding my camera funny; everything really was slanted.
I asked at the people at the bait shop if they knew anyone named Cochran. The man there said he used to mow lawns at the cemetery in Felicity, and that there were lots of Cochrans there. It was a dead end; there were a few kind of similar names, but no Cochrans.
I had hoped to stop in Maysville, Kentucky, just across the river, to find another ancestor. By the time I got there, it was getting late in the day and I had to head for home. The cemetery there is much larger and in better repair, so I think I could call ahead and have someone to direct me.
Who runs the cemetery? I ran into a similar problem when researching our Lithuanian immigrant ancestors in Pittsburgh. I wasn’t able to find out too much from my visit to the cemetery, but I called the people who run the cemetery, and they were able to tell me much more information. My great grandmother (Bird) was buried in a plot bought by someone with the same last name as my great grandfather (Paukstis– Bird, in Lithuanian), and he was buried next to my great grandmother in an unmarked grave, his wife next to him.